Every Australian finance page carries a line about general information. It reads as boilerplate, but it describes a real and useful distinction — one worth understanding, because each side of it is good at something different.
The distinction
General information describes how something works: what a loan-to-value ratio is, what evidence a lender asks a self-employed applicant for, which agency sets a scheme cap, how a break cost is calculated.
Personal advice applies all of that to one person — their objectives, their financial situation, their needs — and recommends a course of action. It is regulated, and the person giving it takes on obligations to the person receiving it.
Why the distinction is useful to you
Because the two are good at different things, and using each for what it does well is more efficient than expecting either to do both.
General information is cheap, immediate and repeatable. You can read a lane page at midnight, follow the links to the agency, and arrive at your first conversation already knowing which two questions decide your outcome. That is preparation, and it is the highest-leverage hour in the whole process.
Personal advice is where the specifics get resolved — which lender’s policy fits your income shape, what your actual capacity is, whether the numbers work. It requires seeing your file, and it comes with accountability attached, which is exactly what you want at the point of decision.
What good general information owes you
The distinction does not excuse being wrong, and a notice at the bottom of a page fixes nothing. What it should give you regardless:
- Every rule linked to the agency that sets it, so you can read the current position first-hand
- A review date, so you know when it was last checked
- Named sources for anything time-sensitive, rather than a number floating free of its origin
- A correction path — for this site, contact@loanhub.au
Getting the sequence right
Read first, then talk. The reading tells you which questions matter; the conversation answers them for your circumstances. Doing it in that order tends to turn a long process into a short one.
The full notice · Complaints about a financial product or service (ASIC)
Reviewed 17 August 2026.