Recently I noticed that a number of sweet promotional offers from our banks was on the rise. To the routine "specials" of honeymoon mortgage rates? they've added agressive returns on deposits (up to 6%) and very low rates on balance transfers.
Of course, the rationale behind this is to get the punters in and then to either cross-sell another product, or to change to standard rates at some point.
So far, I have been unsuccessfull in using these promotios to my advantage. For instance, a simple application for a deposit account with BankWest (they pay 6%) dragged by their processing people to the point when I said: "enough!" They were asking for a document after a document picking on typos in addresses etc. I gave up. After thinking about it I came to a conclusion that perhaps they checked my profile somehow (credit rating and maybe some other sources) and decided that I am not likely to buy any other products from them?
Now, I received a letter from Citibank. They offer a loan account with pre-approved credit limit of up to $25,000 on balance transfers. The interest rate is 4.9% on the transfered balances for life. My idea is to partly refinance my margin loan (currently at 7.7%), pay them interest only (or abit more if their minimal repayments are higher than the interest) and don't use the account for anything else. My gut feeling is that they will not approve my application for the same reason. Could anyone suggest a strategy to get it approved?
My credit history is clear, I match Citibak's lending criteria for this offer (income and age) and have a large mortgage and a few properties.
Lotana
Of course, the rationale behind this is to get the punters in and then to either cross-sell another product, or to change to standard rates at some point.
So far, I have been unsuccessfull in using these promotios to my advantage. For instance, a simple application for a deposit account with BankWest (they pay 6%) dragged by their processing people to the point when I said: "enough!" They were asking for a document after a document picking on typos in addresses etc. I gave up. After thinking about it I came to a conclusion that perhaps they checked my profile somehow (credit rating and maybe some other sources) and decided that I am not likely to buy any other products from them?
Now, I received a letter from Citibank. They offer a loan account with pre-approved credit limit of up to $25,000 on balance transfers. The interest rate is 4.9% on the transfered balances for life. My idea is to partly refinance my margin loan (currently at 7.7%), pay them interest only (or abit more if their minimal repayments are higher than the interest) and don't use the account for anything else. My gut feeling is that they will not approve my application for the same reason. Could anyone suggest a strategy to get it approved?
My credit history is clear, I match Citibak's lending criteria for this offer (income and age) and have a large mortgage and a few properties.
Lotana