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How to apply for an annual interest-free season ticket loan
Contents
Scope
1. All UCL staff are entitled to apply for an annual interest free season ticket loan as long as their contract of employment or external funding is for a period which exceeds the expiry date of the ticket (i.e. a minimum of 12 months) and their net monthly pay is sufficient to cover the deduction of the loan.
Policy
2. Season ticket loans are available for the sole purpose of purchasing an annual season ticket for use in travel from home to work. The season ticket will cover relevant public transport costs but not any other costs of travel, for example it will not cover any costs associated with car use including parking. Use of the loan for any other purpose could lead to disciplinary action. Loans are made in the form of a salary advance via UCL's MyFinance module.
3. If you do not have access at work to a PC then you must complete the ‘Season Ticket Loan Delegated Responsibility’ form (all staff can access their UCZ**** email accounts and MyFinance via a PC within any of the cluster rooms across the campus).
4. Once completed this form will have to be given to someone who is a MyFinance authorised approver within your faculty, or department. That person will have to apply online, on your behalf, for your season ticket loan and you will need to access you UCL email account to confirm your agreement to delegating this responsibility. If you have forgotten your login ID or password then you will need to contact the IT Services (help desk).
Please refer to the Terms and Conditions below for further details.
Application procedure
5. If you are applying for a season ticket loan you should follow the relevant procedure below:
- Apply for a season ticket loan (this is my first application)
- Apply for a season ticket loan (I have had a loan previously)
6. If you have a problem accessing MyFinance or need help using the screens within MyFinance, you must contact the MyFinance Helpdesk on +44 (0)20 3108 3133, (internal ext: 53133) or via their Helpdesk email address; newfis@ucl.ac.uk. Alternatively, you can refer to the online help screens in MyFinance or, by viewing the online expenses booklet, specifically pages 18-23 of the guide.
7. Any questions concerning the terms and conditions of the STL policy, please raise a ticket with hr-services@ucl,ac.uk for the attention of payroll. Payroll cannot assist with any queries relating to access or screen issues within MyFinance.
8. Subject to you meeting wholly the terms and conditions of the policy your application will be authorised or rejected within five working days if all information is attached/uploaded or received.
9. UCL runs one BACS file a week to pay STL’s. You may review the status of your STL application by logging back into MyFinance. If the status is PAID, this means it will be made the following Tuesday. UCL is unable to make payment to you outside of this BACS run.
10. Once the salary advance is made, it will be deducted by 10 equal instalments commencing with the salary of the month proceeding that which payment was made.
11. The deduction will be itemised on your payslip as 'Season Ticket Loan Deduction'.
Terms and Conditions
12. Application for a loan to purchase an Annual Season Ticket for travel between home and the place of employment may be made via UCL’s I-Expenses module and may only be made by a UCL staff member whose contract of employment or external funding is not due to end before the expiry date of the ticket.
13. To be eligible for a loan both full time and part-time staff must have sufficient net pay to cover the monthly deduction of the loan.
14. No further Season Ticket loan will be made until the respective season ticket loan has been discharged.
15. The loan will normally be recovered from salary payments over a ten month period commencing with the pay period following the date of the advance. For clarification, UCL determine the payment date to be that which it releases the money from its bank account and not when your bank credits your account. This is because some banks can take over a week to credit an account following receipt of the monies.
16. Staff will be expected to make arrangements for the purchase of the Season Ticket once the STL advance has been made. In cases where a Season Ticket is no longer required staff are expected to make arrangements to repay the balance on their loan account.
17. In the case of termination of employment before the loan has been repaid, the outstanding balance will be recovered from the final salary payment. By applying for the loan, the borrower agrees to repay immediately any amount outstanding after such final salary recovery has been effected.
18. In the event of loss of ticket it is the borrower's responsibility to effect replacement or arrange repairs. Recoveries from salary payments will continue unabated until the whole loan has been cleared.
19. UCL reserves the right to refuse Season Ticket Loans to individuals at its discretion and the existence of this scheme does not confer any right on any person to loans or advances against salary for other purposes.
20. The Season Ticket Loan scheme and any conditions attached thereto may be amended at any time but without prejudicing any agreement already in existence.
21. UCL reserves the right to inspect Season Tickets upon request at any time during the year. Where no season ticket can be provided upon such a request, the outstanding loan will be deducted in full from the next available salary.
Loans and Taxation
22. Where UCL provides employees with beneficial loans that don’t exceed £10,000 throughout the whole tax year of assessment, nothing is reportable to HMRC and there is no UK tax or National Insurance to pay.
23. Loans in excess of £10,000 are likely to lead to a tax charge. Therefore if you already have a UCL loan of less than £10,000, and you take a further loan of less than £10,000, and the sum of both loans exceeds £10,000, then both the loans will lead to a taxable benefit in kind and trigger a tax charge as HMRC looks at the total value of UCL provided loans. The tax charge is based on what is known as the cash equivalent of the benefit of the loan. This is the difference between the interest actually paid and the HMRC official rate of interest for the tax year.