Rental site moves into finance
Rental property market website operator Rent.com.au is moving into the provision of financial services, with plans to launch a series of "tenancy" products.The company, which describes itself as Australia's number one website dedicated to rental property, announced that it has entered into a joint venture with Fair Go Finance to develop and fund financial products.Currently, the company offers a product called RentBond - finance for rental bonds with terms up to 12 months.Fair Go Finance will take over RentBond and develop the product to give it "greater flexibility", which means loan amounts will be larger and terms longer. And it will work on other product initiatives.In a statement to the ASX, Rent.com.au said: "While these products are yet to be scoped out, an obvious area of focus for us would be on products that are useful for renters during the tenancy period, whether these are loan products or budgeting and financial management products."Fair Go Finance has been in operation since 2008. Its main business is providing personal loans up to A$10,000 to people with bad credit records.