Personal lending slows at CUA
Credit Union Australia has reduced a suite of personal lending products, including overdrafts and new and used car loans, by between 50 and 105 basis points since September, with Andrew Hadley, general manager operations at CUA, adding lending rates are still under review."In relation to the latest movement by the RBA, we haven't yet determined how much of that can be passed on to personal loans."Going back two or three years there was a very little differential between home loans and car loans."There needs to be some more margin potentially priced into those products, (personal lending such as vehicle finance), with bankruptcies trending up, that needs to be factored back into the equation."Personal loan pricing is around the risk aspects."Hadley adds personal lending demand has waned due to borrowers having more options such as a redraw on home loans for funding, consolidating personal loans into their mortgage and interest-free periods on purchases offered by large retailers."In terms of personal loan products, including overdrafts, demand is off slightly and that part of our book isn't growing significantly."Where we are seeing significant growth is in credit cards, but we are coming off a relatively small base."Overdrafts fell 16 per cent to $116 million for CUA during financial year 2008, which acting chief executive officer Rob Nicholls said was due to members using more credit cards, which CUA has outsourced to Citibank."One of the downsides is that it is impacting our personal loans and overdrafts," Nicholls said. There are over 22,000 of these cards on issue.