Negative APRC as a way to attract borrowers

Abstract

In a situation of extremely low interest rates, loan products with APRC = 0% have also become popular in Poland. The authors show that zero does not have to be the lower limit of the value of this indicator and, at little cost to the lending institution, it is possible to create loan products for which the APRC will have a negative value, which may be a good way to acquire customers and improve the competitive position in today’s difficult credit market. In order to minimize the loss on such an offer for the lending institution and at the same time maximize the effect of obtaining the lowest possible APRC, it is necessary to understand how the applicable APRC formula works. The authors showed that a negative commission charged in advance (i.e. a bonus paid to the borrower) can be an effective tool in the competitive fight in the case of loans repaid in one lump sum – much more effective than negative interest rates. They also showed how to select interest and non-interest costs of debt to create a loan product with a negative APRC at the lowest possible cost for the creditor. Therefore, the study can be successfully used by lending institutions in the process of optimizing not only the structure of charged costs, but also the product structure in general.