BYO / Self-Managed Novated Lease — Employer Checker
Many employers technically permit BYO or self-managed novated leases — where you arrange your own financier rather than using the one bundled by your employer's salary packaging provider.
Self-managed leases often offer significantly more competitive effective interest rates than bundled arrangements — this alone can make a meaningful difference to the net cost of the lease over its full term.
This option is frequently obscured or actively discouraged by incumbent salary packaging companies, whose revenue includes a margin on bundled finance. In some cases, when asked directly, consultants have been known to deflect or misrepresent whether this option exists.
This page is a community-maintained record of confirmed employer policies.
What is BYO / self-managed finance? You source your own finance independently, while your existing salary packaging company continues to handle payroll deductions and FBT administration. The financing and the administration are handled by two separate parties.
The industry uses the two names for slightly different things. Maxxia, for example, calls it a BYO lease when you go straight to a lender such as CommBank or Westpac with no broker or introducer involved, and a self-managed lease when the finance you bring is arranged by a broker. Some employers and packaging companies accept only the first. This page uses "BYO" for both unless an entry says otherwise.
How it works in practice
The key thing to understand is that two parties are involved in a BYO lease, each handling a separate role:
- The financier — either a lender you approach yourself (a strict BYO lease), or one sourced by a BYO finance specialist (aka Third Party Introducer) from their lending panel (think: a mortgage broker, but for your novated lease)
- Your existing salary packaging company (e.g. Maxxia, Paywise, Smartleasing) — handles the payroll deductions and FBT administration
Your packaging company does not arrange the finance, but it does have to agree to administer a lease it didn't arrange, and it earns only an administration fee for doing so. In practice the large salary packaging companies accept this. Novated lease companies whose business is the lease itself, such as SG Fleet and Kooya, generally won't administer finance they didn't introduce. If one of them is your employer's only provider, BYO is usually off the table even where the employer itself is happy with it.
How specialists are paid. On finance from their own panel, a specialist is usually paid a commission by the lender, built into your interest rate. Lenders such as CommBank and Westpac pay no commission on these leases, so a specialist who helps you set one up will charge you a fee instead. Ask which applies before you start.
The process typically looks like this:
- Confirm your packaging company will administer it. Check with your employer's salary packaging company that it accepts BYO or self-managed leases, and whether it accepts only finance arranged directly with a lender.
- Get a quote, from a lender or a BYO specialist. Provide your vehicle details, preferred lease term, annual kilometres, income, and postcode. The quote should show your fortnightly cost and effective interest rate.
- Review the quote. Compare the rate against what your packaging company would offer. Rates vary based on your credit profile — good income, assets (e.g. a mortgage), and low debt generally improve what the lender will offer.
- Submit a credit application. If the quote looks competitive, apply for formal pre-approval with the lender (or through the specialist's panel).
- Receive approval. Once approved, the financing is confirmed.
- Provide your dealer contact. The lender or specialist contacts your car dealer to request a tax invoice for the vehicle.
- Sign the lease documents. The lender or specialist prepares documents for both you and your employer to sign. Your employer's role is administrative — they're not arranging anything, just authorising the payroll deduction.
- Finalise the admin arrangement with your salary packaging company. Using the documentation from the lender or specialist, you return to your existing salary packaging company (e.g. Paywise, Smartleasing) to set up the ongoing payroll deduction arrangement. They handle the FBT administration and fortnightly salary sacrifice from this point forward.
- The lease settles. Your salary packaging company begins processing the deductions as normal.
Know of another employer? If you have first-hand knowledge that your employer permits — or explicitly disallows — BYO finance for novated leases,
contact me with details and I'll add it to the database.
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I'm backing Dr Michael Keane's fight for salary packaging transparency
Workplaces with an exclusive salary packaging provider tend to have noticeably higher effective interest rates on novated leases — yet the commercial terms behind these exclusive arrangements are rarely disclosed to employees.
Dr Michael Keane, a Melbourne anaesthetist, is taking a Victorian health service to the Victorian Supreme Court to obtain the unredacted contract between the hospital and its exclusive salary packaging provider. The unredacted version may shed light on alleged sign-on fees associated with exclusive access to hospital employees — an arrangement whose financial terms employees are rarely privy to.
To date, Dr Keane has personally spent around $15,700 pursuing this case, with further legal costs anticipated. I believe this matters to anyone in a workplace with an exclusive provider. If you agree, consider supporting his GoFundMe.