This will be aided by its introduction of ChatBot, a platform to ease personal loan applications

By NG MIN SHEN / Pic By AFIF ABD HALIM

RHB Bank Bhd aims to grow its total conventional personal loan disbursement from RM850 million last year to some RM1.5 billion for 2017, aided by its introduction of ChatBot — a platform to ease personal loan applications.

ChatBot is the result of a collaboration between RHB and financial comparison website RinggitPlus.com, enabling users to apply for personal loans with RHB at any time of the day and obtain results for eligibility within a day via SMS.

RHB acting head of retail banking Nazri Othman said for the last 12 months up to August 2017, the banking group has seen an average personal loan disbursement of RM3 million per month through RinggitPlus.com, in which it has been collaborating over the past few years to enable online loan applications.

“With ChatBot, we aim to achieve a 67% increase to RM5 million in personal loan disbursement monthly. We are targeting to grow our personal loan disbursement (via RinggitPlus.com) by 60% to RM60 million by year-end,” he told reporters at a briefing in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

“The growth in total conventional personal loan disbursement to RM1.5 billion for 2017 will be driven mainly by higher consumption and customers’ needs. We find that people are spending mainly for productive uses in current times,” Nazri added.

As part of its digital thrust, the bank is also working to enhance the application process through the introduction of ChatBot, with focus on the upper end of the mass segment.

Previously, customers applying for “RHB Easy-Pinjaman Ekspres” were required to submit their forms with supporting documents on RinggitPlus.com. Once contacted by the bank, they would then need to visit a branch to further complete the application and obtain the results for eligibility.

However, with ChatBot on RinggitPlus.com, the platform will auto populate information provided by consumers and allows them to apply for personal financing without having to submit a full application, while providing quicker eligibility results.

Nazri said mortgages are the biggest contributor to the group’s total loans, while personal loans make up close to 17% of the overall pie.

RHB’s gross loans increased 2% year-on-year to RM154.47 billion as at end-2016, despite having targeted 8% loan growth for the year. The 2% rise was driven by 13.3% mortgage growth and 11.3% small and medium enterprise loans and financing growth.