Factum reviews payslips, bank statements and employment documents, checks the numbers and the consistency between them, and gives you a file note showing what was checked, what was found and what couldn’t be checked.
$2,472.62 net pay dated 10 July has no matching credit in the statement supplied.
“Could you send the statement for the account your 10 July pay was deposited into?” A gap in the evidence, not an allegation.
Every finding says what the document claims, what Factum found, and the next step in words you can send.
Four statuses, used the same way everywhere. And the rule behind all of them: no inference should be drawn from a check that did not run — it means the question wasn’t asked, not that the answer was satisfactory.
Structure and metadata: an image editor where payroll software should be, a save after the creation date, text pasted in later.
Gross, tax, net, year-to-date, super and statement balances, against each other and line by line.
Net pay on each payslip, matched to salary credits in the statement, including pay split across accounts.
Names, employers, dates and account numbers across every document. Start date against the first pay credit.
ABN, BSB, TFN and Medicare format checks. A tax file number is validated in memory and discarded: never sent to a model, never stored in full.
The same file submitted twice, or to two lenders, is recognised. No copy is kept.
Factum checks consistency, arithmetic, structure and pay credits. It doesn’t certify that a document is authentic, and it never accuses anyone — every finding is written as the next question to ask.
The documents already say whose they are, so there is no reference to invent.
Payslips, statements, letters. Any order.
A few minutes, no questions to answer.
What needs attention, and what to ask for.
A dated record of every check, run or not.
Good compliance means doing reasonable checks, and being able to show what you did. The file note sits beside your preliminary assessment and best-interests notes as the record of the steps you took.
A salary that never reached the bank. A payslip last saved by an image editor. Front page, with what to ask the client for.
A check that couldn’t run is reported as a check that didn’t run, never as a pass. You always know what a clear result is worth.
No opinion on whether a genuine document describes a real job, on serviceability, or on the credit decision. Self-employed financials and identity documents aren’t covered yet. The report shows a page only where a scan needs pointing at, and it says so.
I’m Josh Vecchio, a director at Hunter Galloway, a Brisbane brokerage of about thirty people. We were doing all of this by hand — an hour a file, and we still weren’t certain. So we built Factum.
It runs on our files before anyone else’s. If a check is wrong, it’s wrong for us first.
You are expected to take reasonable steps to verify the information you rely on, and to be able to show what those steps were.
Nobody can spot a well-made fake by eye, and the question is rarely asked at the time. It’s asked later, when someone goes back through the file — and what they ask for is the record of what you checked.
A file not being questioned doesn’t necessarily mean it was properly checked. Factum makes the checking quick, and the record automatic.
Reasonable inquiries and reasonable steps to verify sit with you. A lender that relied on payslips alone, with reason to doubt them, was found to have breached it. Sources ↓
Lender accreditation is a commercial arrangement rather than a licence, and it can be withdrawn. Sources ↓
Since October 2021 a new licensee asks your last one for a reference, and your last one has to answer it. Sources ↓
The short version is beside this. The long version is written down in full, gaps included.
Every upload, check and report is processed and stored in Sydney. Nothing goes overseas unless you choose an AI model that runs outside Australia, and the console makes you acknowledge which countries first. We don’t train any model on your documents.
Documents are destroyed at the end of every check, failed ones included, and the destruction is confirmed. Need to keep them? Choose keep: they stay encrypted, with a seven-year due date recorded on the case.
Each case has its own encryption key, destroyed with the case. Once a case is destroyed, nobody — you or us — can get the documents back.
There’s no sign-up page. Every account is created by a person and needs a second factor. A tax file number is validated in memory and discarded; it is never sent to a model and never stored in full.
Factum is free to use. There are no file charges or subscriptions. If you choose the optional AI second reading, that runs through your own AI account, and any usage cost is between you and that provider.
The duty to verify exists whether you run anything or not. What changes is that the steps you took are written down and dated. Proceed past a finding and you record why, and that reason can’t be edited later.
No. Reasonable inquiries and the preliminary assessment are still yours. Factum does the document part of verifying, and records that you did it.
A note of what to ask the client for, worded so you can send it as is. The report goes to you, not the lender or your aggregator. Most flags are a missing page or pay split across accounts.
It’s written for your file, not as a certificate for the lender. It’s the record that you checked, and what came back.
Each entry names the claim, its primary source, and exactly what that source supports.
National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 (Cth) ss 116–117; best interests duty s 158LA. Supports the obligation itself, not any characterisation of penalties. Primary source ↗
CitedASIC v Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd [2018] FCA 155; penalty ordered 28 February 2018. ANZ admitted 24 contraventions of the responsible lending provisions over car loans its former Esanda business approved through three broker businesses between July 2013 and May 2015. In 12 of them it relied on payslips alone to verify income, knowing payslips could be falsified and with reason to doubt those brokers; the court ordered a $5 million penalty. Supports that relying on payslips alone, with reason to doubt them, breached the obligation — not any claim about broker accreditation. ASIC media release 18-057MR ↗
CitedASIC Corporations and Credit (Reference Checking and Information Sharing Protocol) Instrument 2021/429, in force 1 October 2021; replaced by Instrument 2024/647 for references requested from 1 March 2025, the obligation continuing. Supports that the reference is required, and who asks for it. The instrument ↗ · ASIC’s protocol page ↗
CitedGeneral wording only: accreditation is a commercial arrangement, not a licence, and the lender that granted it can end it. No lender or broker count is named until there is a primary source to cite.
VerifyASIC’s banning notices are public on its register; we haven’t put anyone’s name on this page.
Invitation only. Every account is created by a person and needs a second factor. Invitations come from Hunter Galloway; if you don’t already deal with someone there, say so when you ask and we’ll sort it out.
It tells you what it checked, what it found, what it couldn’t check, and what to do next.