Press release

Harmoney turns five! Meet Rahul Bathla

, 26 September 2019

rahul linked in article fifth birthday 1

Rahul Bathla, product manager

How did you come to join Harmoney?

In 2014, I was happily working in India for what was my dream company then, Oracle. My manager introduced me to the concept of peer-to-peer lending, which intrigued me and I started reading and researching about it. A couple of days later, I received a DM on Linkedin from a consulting firm asking if I was keen on an opportunity to work for a peer-to-peer lending firm based in New Zealand called Harmoney. 

I didn't want to change my job but was also keen to learn about peer to peer lending model , so I went ahead for the meeting. 10 March 2014, marked my first day at Harmoney .  

What were your first few weeks with the company like?

The goal was set from the very first day: we had to go-live in six months. It was challenging but very exciting. I was learning something new everyday. I found working with such an incredible team inspired me to take my own efforts a notch higher every day.

What's your favorite memory/experience from those early days?

In the early start-up days we all had to be nimble. I played different roles depending on the need of the hour and one of those roles brought me to Fiji to train our Customer Services team. It was a unique experience and I really enjoyed it, also learned a lot in the process.

What was the biggest challenge of those early days?

The biggest challenge was working across time zones, between India (where I was still working at that stage) and New Zealand. It was a bit of blur! We used to work from day till night, had meetings  whenever they were needed just to make sure everything was on track, coordinated and working. But we made it! And that made us all really proud.

What's different about working in Harmoney now?

We have grown by leaps and bounds. But we’ve always had a great team, made up of a really good bunch of people. I guess you’d say we’ve matured. Our early focus was really on building the platform, now we’ve evolved where we can focus on solving customer problems.

 

For queries please contact:

Investors

David Stevens
CEO & Managing Director
investors@harmoney.co.nz

Media

Courtney Howe
+61 404 310 364
courtney@domestiqueconsulting.com.au

About Harmoney

Harmoney is an online direct personal lender that operates across Australia and New Zealand providing customers with unsecured personal loans that are easy to access, competitively priced (using risk-adjusted interest rates) and accessed 100% online.

Harmoney’s purpose is to help people achieve their goals through financial products that are fair, friendly, and simple to use.

Harmoney’s proprietary digital lending platform, Stellare™, facilitates its personalised loan product with applications processed and loans typically funded within 24 hours of acceptance by the customer. Stellare™ applies a customer’s individual circumstance to its data-driven, machine learning credit scorecard to deliver automated credit decisioning and accurate risk-based pricing.

Business fundamentals

  • Harmoney provides unsecured personal loans of up to $70,000 for three or five year periods to customers across New Zealand and Australia
  • Its direct-to-consumer and automated loan approval system is underpinned by Harmoney’s scalable Stellare™ proprietary technology platform
  • A significant percentage of Harmoney’s originations are “3R” (repeat) customers, with losses on repeat loans approximately 40% lower than first time loans
  • Harmoney is comprised of a team of 69 full-time employees across Australia and New Zealand, over half of whom comprise engineering, data science and product professionals
  • Harmoney is funded by a number of sources including two “Big-4” bank warehouse programs across Australia and New Zealand and a facility from M∓G Investments

Recent press releases