Material Assistance Services ->No Interest Loan Scheme (NILS ®)

Fairfield No Interest Loan Scheme (NILS) is a community lending scheme where local residents can access small amounts of credit without interest.

Anyone who has lived in the Fairfield Local Government Area for at least six months, is a holder of a Health Care Card from Centrelink, and can demonstrate an ability to repay the loan.

You can borrow up to a maximum of $1000. Fairfield NILS ® is not a form of emergency relief and you must be able to repay the loan within a set period of 6 months to 2 years.

You can borrow the money for items of daily necessity such as washing machines and fridges and other emergencies such as funerals. There are many things that Fairfield NILS ® will not lend money for, such as:

• gas, electricity and telephone bills;
• rent arrears;
• general expenses such as food and clothing;
• items for which assistance can be sought from other agencies e.g bond money, etc.

You need to contact The Parks Community Network on 9609 7400 to make an appointment for an interview.

You will have an assessment interview with a representative from Fairfield NILS ® . This will take about an hour, and you will need to bring some documentation with you, including

• Identification
• Proof of residence
• Proof of income—a payslip or Centrelink statement
• bank statements, etc.

A staff member from Parks will check you meet the eligibility criteria, and talk to you about your current bills and living expenses. This information is kept confidential. This is to ensure that you can repay the loan comfortably. We don’t want to put people in difficult circumstances.

An assessment panel, including representatives from Parks and an independent person, will look at all the applications. They are not told names, addresses, etc. They decide whether to loan is approved or not.

You can ask for a meeting with a member of the assessment panel, who will be a different person to the person who did the assessment interview.

Following this meeting, the assessment panel can look at an application again. The decision of the second convening of the assessment panel is final.

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