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Resolve Finance franchisee Niti Bhargava is running financial awareness workshops to help female migrants better understand their financial liabilities.
Mortgage broker and Resolve Finance – Derrimut franchisee Niti Bhargava is on a mission to help more female migrants take control of their finances.
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The former banker-turned-broker has been specialising in offering financial literacy support to women from the Indian subcontinent after her own personal experience getting a mortgage was less than smooth.
Speaking to The Adviser, Ms Bhargava commented: “I have an Indian background and I migrated to Australia 17 years ago. When I bought my first property I was only 23 and I absolutely had no idea what I was doing. My broker just told me: ‘Do what I say, just sign you here’ and he charged me at that point of time (back in 2009) $1,800 as well.
“I had no idea what he was doing. and whenever I was asking questions, he was like: ‘Oh, these are just calculations. You would not understand’ ... even though I came from an accounting background and I had three Masters!
“But still, I was told: ‘This is too complicated for you.’”
It wasn’t until she began working in a bank (prior to becoming a broker) and understanding how the mortgage process worked in detail that she realised that mortgages “were not rocket science”, and that she need not have been charged for the mortgage lodgement.
“Just from this experience alone, you can see that it can be so hard for people who are migrating from other countries to understand and adjust. Not just with the culture and the language, but then at the same time, things like different finance systems,” she said.
Ms Bhargava added that, as well as structural barriers, societal barriers also can come into play here. For example, she noted that the Indian subcontinent is still a very patriarchal society, with male family members often taking charge of finances for their female relatives.
“It’s really common that either our fathers or our husbands or our brothers – the males, basically – are the ones who look after all the finances. Even though the women are super educated, it’s just the norm that the men take charge.” Ms Bhargava said.
While the broker said that while it was welcome there was a plethora of resources and support available to migrants (in multiple languages), she added that sometimes, “just because of our own ignorance, we just don’t find the right information at the right time”.
“So, that was my motivation to start providing education to women from South Asian countries to ensure that they knew the ins and outs of the contracts they were signing up to,” she said.
The Resolve Finance broker added that the need for this education was brought into sharp focus for her recently, when women started coming to her for help with finding what their financial obligations were following a death or divorce.
Ms Bhargava said: “It’s not uncommon for someone not to know their account details, or banking password, or how to make their repayments... but I helped one woman who didn’t know what online banking was because no-one had ever explained it to her… I worry that many women may not understand that they’re a co-borrower on a loan and what their liabilities and responsibilities are…
“So, when I became a broker around two and a half years ago, that was a key motivation for me; to educate female migrants, particularly those coming from South Asia, on financial education, awareness and financial abuse.”
Ms Bhargava has been conducting short financial education segments on radio (Radio Sanjhi Awaaz Melbourne) and TV (A1TV Entertainment) in both Punjabi and Hindi, and been an active member of a social group called Indian Women in Australia and conducting fortnightly sessions via social media, too.
The Resolve Finance broker will next be holding face-to-face sessions on the home loan process for the Punjabi community in Geelong Baptist Church on 30 August with the aim of taking another to Ballarat later this year.
“My main agenda is to help those who are new to the country or who have never gone through the mortgage process before… I want to educate migrant women and give them confidence that even though they are in a new country, there are enough resources and support out there for them. And the brokers and banks can help,” Ms Bhargava said.
[Related: Brokers urged to ‘watch out for’ financial abuse in clients]
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