Invest and start earning up to 7.50%p.a.

We only allow NZ tax residents over 18 years of age to invest through our platform.

The Prevailing Interest Rates for each the Home Loans Investment Class and Construction Loans Investment Class are displayed on our Investor pages and currently range from 7.00% to 7.50% variable. The interest rate you are presented with when creating your Investment Order on the Platform is the gross interest rate you will receive on your investment (unless a lower interest rate is accepted by the Investor), after any fees are deducted but before Resident Withholding Tax (RWT) is deducted.

The Prevailing Interest Rate is the current Investor interest rate applicable to an Investment Class and Investment Term.  It is set by us from time to time after consideration of the current market interest rates and Platform fees, levies and margins. The Prevailing Interest Rate will be displayed when an Investor places an Investment Order. Investors with open Investment Orders will receive at least five Business Days’ notice before a change to the Prevailing Interest Rate is applied.

Service Margin: We deduct a Service Margin from the gross interest payments made by the Borrower under their loan Agreement. Service Margins vary between Investment Classes and the risk grade of the borrower.

Please note however, that when you place an investment order, the Prevailing Interest Rate displayed is the net rate of return that you should expect to receive on that investment. The Service Margin and Reserve Levy have already been deducted at that point. The only deductions applied to the stated investment return from that point forward will be for Resident Withholding Tax (at a rate that you nominate) on the interest you are credited with once your investment order is matched to an approved borrower. 

For a breakdown of our fees, check out our Fees page.

An Investment Class describes a group of loans written under the same (or fundamentally similar) credit policy and that have substantively similar underlying credit risks. Investment Classes currently available on the platform include: Home Loans, Construction Loans and Personal Loans.

Our Secondary Market allows an Investor to sell an investment at any time provided there is another Investor willing to match the original terms of their investment (amount, term and interest rate). The option to sell your investment can be found at the bottom of the ‘Investments’ tab on your investor dashboard. Read more about the Secondary Market here.

We will deduct Resident Withholding Tax (RWT) from your interest payments. This is paid to IRD on your behalf each month. At the end of the year, we will issue you with an IR15 certificate that you can use for your tax return. You can expect this by 20th May following the tax year-end.

For the Investor, the applicable Reserve Fund will attempt to cover the missed repayment. The ability of a Reserve Fund to cover arrears and defaults is reliant on there being sufficient funds available in that Reserve Fund. Find out more about how the Reserve Fund works under ‘How we manage risk’ or in the Reserve Fund Policy.

When the Borrower catches up with repayments, the arrears payments will be paid back into the applicable Reserve Fund until the arrears are cleared.

Borrowers are actively managed when they go into arrears on a loan. We’ll contact them initially to find out what’s happening and put a repayment plan in place if required. If a Borrower misses two payments consecutively and does not have a repayment plan agreed with us, or arrears are more than two months’ worth of repayments, then they may be referred to our external debt collections agency.

The short answer is no.

We've tried to minimise the risk as much as we can by putting in place a Reserve Fund for each Investment Class, we take out cyber and fraud insurance and employ strict lending criteria and we have robust system controls. We need to be clear however, the Reserve Fund is not an insurance policy and you should familiarise yourself with all of the risks of investing before making an investment. Find out more about how the Reserve Fund works under ‘How we manage risk’ or in the Reserve Fund Policy.

We model the expected life-time loss rate on Loans originated through our Platform under each Investment Class. We then align our reserve levies to ensure that we are reserving at levels adequate to cover the expected life-time loss rates. The reserve levy that is collected from each Borrower repayment is intended to exceed the expected credit losses over the life of our Loan book by circa 50% and ensure the Reserve Fund grows over time. We regularly review our reserve levy rates in the context of Loan book performance and each Reserve Fund balance to ensure we are collecting sufficient reserves to offset future credit losses. 

Whilst this does not guarantee your investment, the Reserve Fund provides a buffer to help protect investments from expected credit losses (and then some) and provide investors greater predictability of investment repayments. 

In the event that the Reserve Fund was to run down dramatically, we maintain the ability to divert up to 100% of future Investor interest payments (not capital) into the Reserve Fund to cover credit losses. This effectively means losses are socialised across all Investors in the Platform and helps protect the capital of all Investors.

The minimum amount you can specify when creating an Investment Order is $100. The maximum you can invest through our platform is $2 million. So, you’re free to invest any amount within that range.

Our Borrowers can borrow up to $2 million for Personal Home Loans and Business Property Loans (depending on product and Borrower location, with a maximum of $1 million per security).

Your Investment Order may be split across multiple Loans or fully consumed by one Loan. Because we provide Reserve Funds to each Investment Class, you don’t need to spread your risk across multiple Loans as any losses that couldn’t be absorbed by the applicable Reserve Fund would be socialised across all Investors in that Investment Class proportionally if need be. Find out more about how the Reserve Fund works under ‘How we manage risk’ or in the Reserve Fund Policy.

Another thing to consider with larger Investment Orders is the Secondary Market. Investments sold on the Secondary Market currently require the whole investment to be transferred on a 1:1 basis i.e. a larger investment would likely be harder to sell. For example, to sell an investment of $70,000 on the Secondary Market, it will rely on another investor having an available Investment Order in the same Investment Class of at least $70,000 in value.

If the Prevailing Interest Rates have increased since your investment was matched, then the investment may also take longer for another Investor to accept your investment due to the lower interest rate offered.

So, if you intend on selling an investment at any stage, you should keep this in mind when creating your investment orders.

Squirrel receives bank transactions from its banking partner each morning for the previous day, so the system is always one day behind. We’re working on more regular updates, but that is still under development.

Home Loans & Construction Loans are parcelled up into $100 portions. When a loan is available to be invested in, investment orders will be allocated immediately on a ‘first come, first served’ basis.

Investor funds and Loans are held inside an Independent Trust and cannot be accessed by us in the event of Squirrel Money Limited failing.

In the event that Squirrel was placed into receivership (or the like), we have set aside sufficient funds by way of a bank bond (underwritten by our core banking partner) for the benefit of the Independent Trustee. This bond (plus access to the ongoing Service Margin on Loan repayments) is in place to ensure an appointed third party can continue to administer the collection of Borrower repayments and payments to Investors until such time as the Loan book is wound up. 

As part of our license we also maintain a disaster recovery and termination plan. In the event that the Platform ceases operation, any balances remaining in the Reserve Funds following repayment of all outstanding Loans and otherwise at the end of any managed wind-up process, will be donated to the Starship Foundation or such other charity having similar charitable purposes selected by the Trustee or any other person primarily responsible for the winding-up of the Platform.