Dfinanz: A client platform

Dfinanz, an Australian fintech company focused on mortgage refinancing, announced in September that it had entered into agreements with three Australian lenders and seen the first engagements between borrowers and lenders on the platform.

dfinanz allows borrowers to set their desired interest rates – their ?Fair Rates? – to refinance mortgages in an online marketplace. Lenders can ?hit? these rates with offers for loans based on these rates.

Founder Peter Coco said the firm was well positioned to give consumers more power while not requiring banks to change their existing lending infrastructure.

“dfinanz was conceived around the idea that home buyers should be able to help set the interest rate they will pay on their loans,” he said. “Comparing rates is really difficult and time consuming and even then the advertised rates won?t be the same as what you end up paying. With dfinanz, the borrower tells the banks what rate they want to pay, and the banks come to them. It?s turning the traditional model on its head but the beauty is that is doesn?t fundamentally change the way the banks do this business from an operational perspective. That?s why we think it will work – and is already working.”

Canstar caught up with dfinanz founder, Peter Coco, for a quick Q&A:

Q: What makes now the right time for Dfinanz to enter the Australian market?

A: Bank profitability is at unprecedented levels in Australia, despite the fact that the economy is not growing as strongly as it has in the past. Those profits have to come from somewhere, mostly ordinary Australians. Dfinanz and many other Fintech players have emerged in response to this problem.

Q:  What are the main differences between P2P lending platforms and your business model. What are the advantages of your model?

A: We are not a P2P nor a lender, we are a Social Market Network for finance and the real value in our platform is generated by and for the users. The main advantage is that we are a client platform, not a lender platform. By this we mean that the platform is developed to generate direct benefits to the user (the ability to refinance at their own Fair Rates) but also to deliver a broader social benefit in the form of a publicly viewable Marketplace. The main difference between Dfinanz and comparison sites is that the information reflects real circumstances for borrowers instead of information contributed by lenders.

Q: I note you have three lenders currently on board; do you have a target number of lenders to recruit over the next 12 months?

A: We are currently in discussion with numerous lenders at present all of which are at varying stages. We would like to emphasize that Dfinanz is brand agnostic. Our target is not based upon numbers of lenders, but achieving an outcome. The outcome we are seeking is for the borrowers using the platform to have their Fair Rate expectations met.

You can find out more about dfinanz here.