There is no doubt that fintechs in Australia have now established solid reputations for providing consumers, hassle-free and easy to access financing products. When compared to traditional lenders, there are stark differences between the two, particularly in conducting and carrying out key lending processes and activities.

First off, traditional lenders like banks, make the onboarding process tedious and time-consuming, while the opposite is true with fintechs. Primarily because fintechs leverage advanced technologies, including the use of online and mobile platforms.

Examples of Key Differences between Traditional and Fintech Lenders

Below are two examples of how such differences have given fintech lenders an edge over traditional lender:

Document/Data Collection and Loan Documentation

Applying for a loan or financing facility with traditional lenders entail visits to the brick-and-mortar office of a lending company — to manually fill up a loan application and to submit as well as sign the required documents. After which, traditional lenders will assign their in-house credit investigator to background check and verify the validity of information contained in the documents submitted by the loan applicant.

The entire process is not only time consuming, but also creates additional costs that loan applicants have to pay for as processing fees. At which point, the loan applicant will have shelled out a substantial amount of money just to have his or her application processed. Processing fees are paid even if there is still uncertainty if the traditional lender will approve or disapprove the loan application,

This is one aspect that fintech lenders have disrupted in traditional lending methods. Through the use of technological innovations, fintech lenders have enabled loan applicants to apply and submit documents at any given time and from any location by simply scanning and sending the scanned copies as attachment to emails. Validation of the information contained therein are carried out digitally and swiftly, to which the processing fees collected are minimal.

Moreover, fintech lending technologies allow approved borrowers to affix digital signatures on loan contracts and other related documents.

Credit Analysis and Underwriting

Traditional lenders are highly dependent on the analytical skills, capability and efficiency of Credit Analysts in determining the potential success of loans. Since the process of analyzing is done manually, it usually takes a credit analyst about 4 to 6 weeks to complete an analysis, before the Credit Manager can perform the underwriting process. This denotes an additional period before a loan applicant receives notice of approval or disapproval.

In contrast, lending companies that harness state of the art technologies use underwriting algorithms in analyzing the digitally collected information of loan applicants. The artificial intelligence (AI) of their analytics engine is self-learning, as it develops certain rules for discerning data available in government records, tax returns, credit history, location of applicant’s residence, number of household members and such other information used for generating a score that a Credit Manager uses as basis for decision making.

Awesome even, is that such processes can be completed in a matter of 24 hours at the most. That being the case, consumers and retailers do not lose time waiting for a fintech’s decision to approve or disapprove a financed purchase transaction.

Just some words of caution though, as the success of fintechs in Australia has also spawned the emergence of unscrupulous individuals who present themselves as tech-savvy lenders. Moreover, do not be too eager to close Australian car loans with car dealerships that are quick to close financing deals — especially if they are not holders of Australian Credit Licenses.

Be in the know that some unlicensed dealerships maintain sales-driven collaborations with traditional lenders. As such a financing transaction is actually between the traditional lender and the consumer, which gives the former the right to repossess the vehicle in the event the consumer fails to make a specific number of monthly payments.