BANK PERSONAL LENDER OF THE YEAR HSBC
Despite facing increased competition from non-banks and customer-owned banks, regular banks can still offer attractive rates, and that’s certainly the case with this year’s winner, HSBC.
It offers its customers unsecured personal loans that range from $5000-$50,000, with fiveyear unsecured loans starting at 8.50%pa.
“This award is a testament to our unrelenting focus and commitment to creating products that deliver value and support to our customers’ everyday banking requirements,” says David Pearson, head of unsecured lending products at HSBC Australia.
“Our customers tell us they use our competitive low-rate personal loans for life’s important milestones, such as buying a car, paying for a wedding or completing that much-needed renovation, as well as managing their financial needs through debt consolidation.”
Last year saw demand for consumer loans fall as the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic took hold, says Pearson, but the turnaround is well and truly in motion.
“We are seeing the personal lending industry starting to pick back up now as the economy and consumer confidence increase, but not at the same pace as other products like home loans or credit cards.”
As exemplified by the emergence of neobanks, customers demand easy-to-use, streamlined banking experiences. “Our customers are after a fast, simple and digital experience, with a quick turnaround time, informing them of the amount they can borrow. We see this, along with the interest rate offered to the customer, as some of the most important parts of the product journey, and something our customers rank high in their consideration.”
Banking has increasingly become a digital experience, promoting speed and ease of use.
“As part of HSBC’s customer onboarding journey, we have introduced facial recognition to verify customers, which has sped up the application process and reduced approval times, with other digital verification tools also being introduced to further streamline the process in future,” says Pearson.
“Having a completely digital onboarding journey has allowed us to simplify our end-toend process and provide a great experience for our customers.”
Despite the importance of the banking experience, the consumer finance awards are quantitative. The winner was the bank lender that had the highest average product rankings across the major personal lending categories of unsecured personal loans fixed over three and five years, car loans and debt consolidation loans.
Second place goes to St.George Bank, which offers debt consolidation loans up to $30,000 with a variable rate from 9.99%pa. BankSA, in third position, has unsecured personal loans between $2000-$50,000 with interest rates from 11.49%pa, and secured personal loans between $3000 and $80,000 from 7.49%pa.