Net helps finance seekers

INTERNET growth is helping to stack the finance odds further in the favour of the consumer.

The deregulation of the banking industry helped give consumers more choice.

The old adage was: “How do I stand for a loan? You don’t, you kneel”.

Now the traditional financiers appear to be doing the kneeling.

AGC managing director John Malouf said the company initially offered just one product – a hire purchase loan that ran for fifteen months and required a 25 per cent deposit by the customer.

“Now we probably have about thirty products and the ability to take products we don’t manufacture and rebrand them as AGC,” he said.

BankWest manager consumer products John Rolfe said that, in the past four years, all the bank’s home loan products had changed substantially.

Mr Malouf said the Internet had opened up a range of opportunities for his company.

“It allows us to communicate with consumers in a way we

couldn’t do even five years ago,” Mr Malouf said.

He said the Internet also allowed customers to access their finance more quickly.

AGC is close to releasing Internet booths that will allow

consumers to apply for loans online and receive an answer almost instantly.

However, Mr Rolfe said there was little evidence that loans applications would flood in through the Internet.

“Research shows people tend to use the Internet as an information source rather than as an application source,” he said.