About Us Press releases Harmoney Reaches $1 Billion in Lending

Harmoney Reaches $1 Billion in Lending

Nearly half of Borrowers consolidating debt or improving their home; more than $35 million in interest paid to retail investors.

Parnell, 12 November 2018

Harmoney, Australasia’s largest fintech lending marketplace, has marked another first for fintech in New Zealand and Australia by hitting $1 billion in loan volume. The milestone comes as the company’s operations soared between FY17 and FY18, with 87% revenue growth.

Harmoney’s loan book primarily consists of borrowers in the 30-49 age bracket, with an average age of 45; the book is skewed towards home owners (45% of borrowers) and skilled workers, chiefly office workers (37%) and other professionals. Just under 51,000 loans to more than 32,000 borrowers have been serviced via the Harmoney marketplace across New Zealand and Australia.

Borrowers primarily access loans via Harmoney for debt consolidation (35.2% of all loans) and home improvements (13.8%). On behalf of a number of borrowers who have taken out loans for debt consolidation purposes, Harmoney has distributed more than $164 million directly to third-party creditors such as banks.

Other oft-cited loan purposes include business cash flow, to clear an overdraft, education expenses, medical expenses, and funeral expenses.

Payment transactions via Harmoney’s bespoke platform now number in the tens of millions, with more than 65 million investor payment transactions and more than 1 million transactions on the borrower side. Total retail investors have surpassed 8,500 and they have collectively been paid more than $35 million in interest.

Joint CEO Neil Roberts says, “To achieve a milestone like this we needed to drive investment in the whole fintech sector, which remains fledgling compared with the big banks. We have created highly paid, high-skilled jobs in this industry and helped build valuable weightless export revenue, which is crucial to the future health of the New Zealand economy. We have also attracted foreign capital investment and boosted competition in a market that has long been dominated by Australian-owned companies.

“We are proud to be part of a successful New Zealand Inc story as a Kiwi tech company opening up competition both in New Zealand and across the ditch with fairer rates. Whether the growth of Harmoney and the reduction in the cost of borrowing in personal lending is coincidental or causative is for economists to decide, but the upshot is that our marketplace gives choice, freedom and opportunity to borrowers and lenders, and that’s a real achievement in the Australasian context.”

Earlier, Harmoney rounded off the year ended 31 March 2018, just its third full year of operation, by recording 87% growth in revenue. During the year, the company continued to invest in its platform, with close to $10m spent on research and development and other technology-related costs.

Fact Sheet

  • The average age of a Harmoney borrower is 45, and 45% of borrowers own their home and are paying a mortgage; 37% work in an office and 20% in a trade;
  • Just under 51,000 loans to 32,100 borrowers have been serviced via the Harmoney marketplace to date; 29,066 of borrowers are in New Zealand and 3,034 in Australia;
  • Harmoney has 8,572 retail investors who have been paid $35.2 million in interest;
  • All borrowers using the Harmoney platform are required to give a reason/s for their borrowing. The most commonly cited are (in descending order):
    • Debt consolidation (29,408 loans or 35.2% of all loans);
    • Home improvements (11,960 loans; 13.8%);
    • Business cash flow (3,269 loans; 4%);
    • To clear an overdraft (2,086 loans; 2.7%);
    • Education expenses (1,464 loans; 1.7%);
    • Medical expenses (1,192 loans; 1.46%);
    • Funeral expenses (720 loans; 0.9%).

For queries please contact:

Investors

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

Media

Stephanie Ottens
Investor Relations
stephanie.ottens@marketeye.com.au
+61 434 405 400

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 risk based priced unsecured personal loans of up to $70,000 for three or five year periods to customers across Australia and NZ
  • Its direct-to-consumer and automated loan approval system is underpinned by Harmoney’s scalable Stellare™ proprietary technology platform
  • A large percentage of Harmoney’s originations come from 3R™ (repeat) customers
  • Harmoney is comprised of a team of ~80 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