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ING enters personal loan space

by Reporter10 minute read
ING, personal loan, piggy bank, money, cash, Australian dollars,

The non-major lender has entered the personal loan space in Australia for the first time, rolling out an unsecured, fixed rate personal loan product with limits between $5,000 and $30,000.

The online bank has released a new, unsecured personal loan for Australian permanent residents (over the age of 18) who earn more than $36,000 a year or more before tax (and have PAYG payslips) and have a good credit rating.

Available to borrowers on terms of between two and five years with fortnightly or monthly repayments, the unsecured personal loan is currently only available with a fixed interest rate of 8.99 per cent per annum (9.13 per cent comparison, based on an unsecured loan of $30,000 over a loan term of five years) for loans of between $5,000 and $30,000.

While there are no monthly fees or early repayment fees, the loan does come with a $100 establishment fee (waived for Orange Everyday account holders) and a late payment fee of $20.

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According to the lender, existing ING customers can receive the personal loan funds into their Orange Everyday account on the same day the loan offer is accepted.

The lender recently commissioned a research into young people’s attitudes to debt, which found that Millennials are the least likely to have a credit card (according to research undertaken by RFI on behalf of ING in March 2017).

According to the research, of the 500 prospective personal loan holders surveyed last year, more than half (55 per cent) believed that being able to pay the loan off early was a key consideration when taking out a personal loan, with 60 per cent saying that it was important to them to be able to make additional repayments.

Separate research undertaken by the bank over the same period also found that 58 per cent of the 400 Millennials that already had a personal loan were making more than the scheduled repayments required.

As such, ING’s head of retail banking, Melanie Evans, said that Millennials’ “very considered approach to debt management” and their wishes to repay debt off quickly were key reasons for ING releasing a personal loan product that did not charge fees for early repayment.

“We want to help our customers get ahead by encouraging them to pay off their loan sooner. We certainly won’t be surprising them with fees for achieving this,” Ms Evans said.

The lender launched its first credit card in Australia last year.

[Related: FHBs turning to brokers for financial education]

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