ING Direct

With a sleek and simple scroll-down landing page, ING Direct is a surprising pleasure to engage online. With thoughtful layout and tone, the company offers clients a chance to “see how banking could be”.

Playing on the many nuances that it hopes will distinguish it from more traditional lenders, ING Direct has managed to do so with a clear and uncluttered home loan offering process.

One can click straight through to a brass-tacks depiction of what the online loan application process entails and what potential costs might be.

A dutch multinational

A Dutch multinational that is further tied into a consortium of European banks, ING Direct nonetheless presents as a wholly at-home presence on the continent. With a long history and massive assets, the company has the ability to tweak offers to Australians with assurance.

Potential homeowners have long patronised these and the lender’s home loans portfolio is a staple and steady aspect of its business dealings.

A people’s company

Notable among its tabs, Customer Care features dead centre and its offshore roots have deepened its stance as a user-friendly company, no doubt having learned lessons from a diverse population on the European landmass.

The home loan offer from ING Direct comes accompanied online with categories of “investor” or “occupier” and also a very handy interactive initial page.

Here one can allocate sums, and repayment periods and identify as either looking for an owner-occupied or investment home. Figures below the input boxes shuffle accordingly and this is a very smart addition to help clarify costs.

A clear deal

Interestingly, ING Direct is one of the only online banks present to Australians that makes it a clear point that a mortgage deposit aids interest repayments.

Repayment rates change significantly when one adjusts the term, and this is demonstrated on the site. Further, it is also shown how figures change based on how much a client can afford to lodge as a deposit.

Home loan costs examples

By way of an example, a prospective homeowner looking for a home to live in, borrowing from ING Direct, bringing a 10% deposit to the request to finance a house that costs up to $500k, will be offered a rate of 4.19% against a comparative rate of 4.21%.

All of this information is 30 seconds in the calculation and a very clever step in the company’s online process others would do well to emulate.

By way of comparison, the same structure in detail but on a fixed interest rate would see a pitch of 3.99% against a comparison of 4.54%. They have a very sleek and intelligent application, which makes the process pleasant and unambiguous from start to finish.