Your organisation is likely to have multiple loan products with different terms and rates. Each product requires specific information from and, therefore, questions for the applicant.
Customisation of this product journey is catered for within the dashboard, allowing you to control the customer journey for each member type on each product, with control over which checks are performed and when!
If you have the necessary permissions and authority within your organisation, you can add and modify the loan product information by clicking the Settings icon in the bottom left of the screen,
and from the resulting menu, selecting "Loan Products" and the Loan Products page will open:
Adding a Loan Product
Depending on your organisation's current settings, you may or may not have a number of loan products set up already. Before you add a new loan product, you should first verify that it doesn't already exist. To add a Loan Product click the 'New' button in the top right, which will open a panel on the right hand side where you can enter the new loan product details.
Product name and rule set
The first thing you should do here is enter a Product Name and choose the rule set the product will use. If you haven't already created the rule set then you should probably do that first to avoid any applications being made, using the wrong rule set.
For a detailed guide on howto create a rule set, please check out our Creating a rule set article.
Alternatively you can select the Standard rule set for now and you can come back to edit these details once the desired rule set is in place, but we do not recommend this.
The remaining Product settings are organised into tabs:
Membership & Check Types
On this tab you set who the product is for; New members only, Existing members only or All.
New members
Once you know who the product is for, you can set up the checks they need to go through and the order to do them.
For example, for new members, it’s smart to first prove their identity with an ID check. Next, check if they meet the company’s credit rules. Finally, you can see if they can afford it with an Open Banking check.
It’s also a good idea to offer a “soft check” to possible new members, so they can see their chances of getting a loan without affecting their credit score.
Here’s how you might set up the checks for new members:
We tick the box to allow soft checks
We then perform an ID and Credit check - with bank verification to prevent fraud
And after that, if the ID and Credit checks result in either an Accept or Refer decision: we ask the applicant to connect to Open Banking
Existing members
You might set up checks differently for existing members.
For example, if you already have enough information about them, you might skip the identity check. For their loan application, the most important part could be checking if they can afford it.
So, you could start with an Open Banking check. If they pass this check (or get a “Refer” result), then you would do a credit check.
You can also include a “soft check” for the credit part. This way, if the member doesn’t pass the credit check, their credit score won’t be affected, and your team will only handle “Accept” or “Refer” applications.
Product details
The next tab is the all important product details where you control the specifics of the loan product, from its value to its eligibility criteria.
Quickly review all the available options by scrolling down in the Create New Product panel.
The 4 key areas you will need to have in place before saving a product are:
APR by Loan Amount Band (at least one required but no limit)
Where interest rates vary depending on the amount borrowed
Minimum & Maximum Term (in months)
The minimum and maximum repayment period for the loan product
Repayment frequency
Repayment frequency options for the member to choose from. Allows you to enforce strict repayment schedules depending on business or other needs, such as weekly or 4-weekly when repayment is via child benefit.
Other Eligibility criteria
For example if the loan must be repaid by child benefit and the Loan Purpose can only be Debt consolidation:
Please note that rate and value bands are product-specific and cannot be varied based on membership type. If you offer different rates to new and existing members, you will need to create separate products which can quickly become complicated and overwhelm users.
We recommend having no more than 3 basic products.
Other settings in this tab include:
Minimum membership (months) - If a product has a minimum membership length requirement, it can be detailed here.
Minimum savings (£) - Minimum share balance requirement (if applicable)
Home owners only - Available to homeowners only (if ticked)
Employed only - Available to employed applicants only (if ticked)
Repay via Child Benefit & Repay via payroll - specify whether the member can (optional) or must (Required) repay by either method, or if these payment methods are irrelevant to the product then 'none' can be selected.
Secured? - Tick if the loan is secured against an asset (usually the member's share balance).
Can be topped up - Tick if the loan can be topped up.
Top-up period: Specify the number of days after which the loan may be topped up.
Purpose - Select a purpose if the product has a predefined one (e.g. a consolidation loan product would have a predefined "consolidation" purpose); otherwise, leave allow to allow the applicant to choose from a variety of possible purposes.
Other conditions & Special benefits - Specify any additional conditions or benefits associated with the product.
Additional questions
The additional questions section is where you specify the information required from the applicant before they can submit their application. You can differentiate between new and existing members and make questions optional or require, therefore you can ask each member type different questions as needed.
For example you may wish to ask a New member applicant to upload proof of ID &/or address as so make this a requirement for them. But you may not need this from Existing members and can therefore select 'N/A' for existing members.
If the loan product is available to both New and Existing members then you will be presented with radio options for both. If the loan product is only available to one or the other then you will only be shown radio options for the relevant type.
If the product is available to all member types:
If the product is available to new members only:
If the product is available to existing members only:
Not all questions will be relevant to every loan product and the information you gather from applicants should be relevant to the decision making process for the loan only.
Ensure all additional question settings are set as desired by scrolling through them.
We recommend working from top to bottom.
Once you are satisfied with the settings and options for the loan product, click the 'Save changes' button in the bottom right to create the product.
After creating the loan product, you will see it in the products list. From where you can edit or delete it should the need arise.
Editing and deleting a loan product
In the Loan Products table, use the Actions column to either Edit (Pencil icon) or Delete (trash can icon) the product.
When deleting a loan product, we will ask you to confirm that you wish to delete it
To confirm the deletion click the "Remove" button, to cancel the deletion click the X in the top right of the pop-up.
Please do not delete a loan product unless you are absolutely certain it must be deleted. Deleted product settings cannot be retrieved.
Hopefully you now feel confident in how to add, edit and maintain your loan product records.
But if anything is unclear or you have any questions or suggestions of how we can improve this area, then please don't hesitate to let us know.
You can reach us in Chat using the blue chat icon in the bottom right of this page or you can send us an email at support@nestegg.ai