Research highlights demand for flexible finance options

Research from finance solutions provider Duologi has shown that consumers want access to flexible finance options, with 20% saying that they would be more likely to go elsewhere if a company did not offer them.

The study, entitled Finding the right balance: the future of credit, found that point-of-sale (POS) finance, which enables customers to purchase a product or service through a loan, could be critical to a company’s survival.

Missing out

The study found that UK businesses are missing out on more than £25bn by not providing flexible finance options such as POS finance, with more than 75% of UK consumers (around 39 million adults) saying that they would consider purchasing a product through this finance option in the future.

Consumers were found to favour merchants that offer POS finance options, with 34% saying that they would be more likely to spend money on a company that provides this service and 20% being more likely to go elsewhere if a company did not offer flexible finance options.

The research also showed that finance options can help to boost a customer’s loyalty to a particular brand, with more than 25% of respondents saying that they would be likely to go back to a company that offered these options.

Powerful technology

Commenting on how new platforms are helping to improve consumer finance offerings, Duologi’s Co-CEO Gary Little said that fintech companies are driving a change in the market – whereas previous incarnations of consumer finance offerings might have been beset by long application processes or slow procedures, new platforms, which are built on powerful technology, are making this sort of transaction as simple as paying via credit card but with the flexibility to repay the cost in a manner that suits customers’ needs.