Standard Chartered Bank (Taiwan) Ltd launched its "personal loan instant pre-approval service" yesterday -- the first of its kind in Taiwan -- to secure quality customers in the wake of the consumer credit crisis.
"Time is money. We understand that consumers don't like to spend half an hour or more on banking," said John Peng (彭軍), executive vice president of credit cards and personal loans, at a press briefing yesterday.
The new program claims that personal loan customers will be informed of the result -- whether they can obtain a loan from Standard Chartered -- within 10 minutes simply by filling in an application form with five fields: name, mobile phone number, ID number, annual income and signature.
Applicants receiving a positive answer from the bank in the pre-approval segment will then need to submit a detailed application form.
"Support from the [semi-official] Joint Credit Information Center (聯合徵信中心) and Taiwan's distinguished high-tech industry have made the speedy service possible," he said, adding that boosting the quality of service the personal loan market would be an effective solution to undercutting competition.
Peng dismissed concerns the new service could be risky, saying that at the worst period of the credit and cash-card abuse crisis, only 300,000 card holders required help through the banking sector's bail-out program.
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