Susan Gordon, Business Reporter

Sheree Martin, NCB group assistant vice-president in charge of marketing and communications. - File

National Commercial Bank of Jamaica Limited (NCB) will, later this year, allow online loan and credit-card applications, a service it anticipates about 10 per cent of its customers will utilise.

The online service, however, will be limited to an application for credit.

Customers will still have to show up at the bank to complete the process.

"The online service will accommodate applications for personal loans and credit-card facilities," NCB Assistant General Manager for Group Marketing and Communications Sheree Martin told Sunday Business.

"The system will primarily facilitate the completion of the credit-application form online at the customer's convenience," said Martin, adding that the service was open to the use of all types of NCB customers.

The facility was first mentioned, but only in passing, by Group Managing Director Patrick Hylton at the bank's annual general meeting, February 28, as a service to come on stream before the end of NCB's financial year in September.

By leveraging its Internet banking platform, the company expects the service, when offered, to reduce the time customers seeking credit currently spend in a branch to complete such transactions.

"Internationally, the percen-tage of applications submitted via the Internet channel does not exceed 10 per cent," said Martin.

"As a result, our expectations for usage are in line with this trend."

Typically, bank loans attract a variety of transaction fees, but Martin said they had not yet determined the need to charge for this service.

Instant feedback

Once the application form is completed, the system will provide the customer with a conditional approval or refusal, based on the information entered on the form.

The customer would then visit a branch where his or her documentation can be validated and a final determination made.

Though NCB did not directly claim to be the first local financial services institution to offer a consumer-loan applications online service, Martin said she was not aware of any other firm offering the service.

susan.gordon@gleanerjm.com