“Online Loan Exchange: Easily Compare Interest Rates and Exchange Money on Mobile”

☞Subscribe to the Hankyoreh Newsletter H:730. Type ‘Hankyoreh 730’ in the search bar. Amugae Lee (42), an office worker at a mid-sized domestic company, accessed the Kakao Pay app on a smartphone on the afternoon of the 31st, when the online refinancing loan service began. It was to see if it would be possible to change the ‘minus account’ of 7.249% per annum, currently being used by one of the five major commercial banks, to a product with a lower interest rate. The result of waiting for about 5 minutes was that ‘there is no loan that is advantageous to transfer now’. Mr. Lee said, “I was hoping to reduce the interest burden even a little, but it was futile.” On the first day when the ‘online, one-stop refinancing loan infrastructure’ developed so that financial consumers can easily transfer to a loan with a lower interest rate was unveiled, there were not a few financial consumers like Lee who were relieved. It was useful to be able to check the availability of refinancing loans with a smartphone without visiting a branch, but it was difficult to find a product with a lower interest rate that could actually be transferred. Of course, there were also financial consumers who switched to low-interest products with this service. As a result of the Financial Services Commission counting the usage performance for the day (9:00 am to 4:00 pm), a total of 1819 loans (approximately 47.4 billion won) were made. In the case introduced by the Financial Services Commission, it seems that financial consumers who are presumed to have improved their credit rating due to a significant increase in income mainly due to change of job or employment seem to have succeeded in switching. For example, a consumer who used to use a credit loan of 80 million won at a savings bank at an annual interest rate of 15.2% switched to a credit loan product with an annual interest rate of 4.7%. In the case of converting banknotes to banknotes, the interest rate was lowered from 9.9% per annum to 5.7% per annum. The interest of financial consumers was hot. Kakao Bank stopped accepting applications on this day, saying that the daily loan exchange limit was exhausted about two hours after the service started. Toss, which provides a refinancing loan platform service, also posted a notice that users could not use the loan inquiry service to some users at around 2:00 pm. Some financial consumers received a message that there were no products available when they inquired about refinancing loans on platforms such as Kakao Pay, but they also experienced checking refinancing products in individual bank apps. Mr. Seong Amugae (36), an office worker who used to pay 6.819% of his savings account at a commercial bank per year, said, “When I looked up refinancing loans on Kakao Pay, it said that there were no products available, but when I looked up products that could be refinished on the Kakao Bank app, I got 5.397 per year. A product with a percent interest rate came out,” he said. In other words, ‘non-face-to-face balpum’ must still be sold to find financial products with better conditions. This is because there are still not many financial companies affiliated with the platform, and each is different, and the number of exchange-only products viewed on the platform is not large. In fact, there are not a few loan products that financial companies allow you to view only through their own apps, and internet-only bank loan products can only be checked through each company’s app. Reporter Nam Ji-hyun [email protected]