Majority Of Those Taking Personal Loan Use It To Repay Debts - Survey

The majority of Malaysians with a personal loan has taken it to repay credit card debts and other debts.

According to findings by Ratera & van Galen on a consumer banking survey to understand, track behaviour and needs of banking customers, 24 percent of Malaysians with a personal loan has taken one to repay credit card debts, and 53 percent to pay back other debts.

"The average amount taken by the customers is almost RM20,000 and the repayment period is six years on average," said Ratera & van Galen in a statement here Wednesday.

Ratera & van Galen director, Toon van Galen, said among the big players in the personal loan segment, Bank Rakyat led with 43 percent of the interviewed personal loan holders having taken up their personal loan from it, followed by HSBC with 10 percent and BSN and CIMB with eight percent.

It said Malayan Banking Bhd and Public Bank Bhd had not established a substantial market share in this segment yet.

About 70 percent of all personal loans were taken up by Malays and only 22 percent by Chinese, it said.

Ratera & van Galen is a market research agency specialising in studies of shopping behaviour in the fields of grocery, banking and automotive.

Source: http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v3/news_business.php?id=335914