Once a customer is placed with one of the 28 mortgage lenders, including the big banks in the country, Finspo will analyse the data in relation to that customer’s account and show him ways to not only negotiate lower interest rates, but also reduce debt more quickly during the life of the loan.
After being subjected to interrogation by the royal commission previously on NAB’s use of the household expenditure measure (HEM benchmark), Gilfillan said he is glad to be “on the other side”, helping customers save. “I had a desire to do something fiercely pro-consumer for a while and being an executive at a bank, even before the royal commission, there was not always a role for that. The royal commission and all the focus didn’t give me a lot of reasons to stay [at NAB],” he said.
According to Finspo’s CEO, around $9500 is spent by an average Aussie a year on interest and banking fees, and this could be brought down to about $5000 by following a few simple measures such as using offset accounts, reducing credit card balances and demanding the best rates available in the market.
While the app may provide customers with the option of switching to lenders which offer lower rates, Gilfillan noted that Finspo will not be driven by features that would deliver more commission revenue. Therefore the team intends to launch functions that will enable customers to renegotiate rate with their existing bank in order to avoid switching.
