Bendigo Bank offers Green Loan

One of our goals was solar hot water with no upfront costs AND being able to pay it off out of the electricity savings.

To achieve that, NAB helped us out with their low-rate credit card as a payment option. The advantage is that you can pay the solar hot water off over 5 years (or even longer).

However, we do suggest to pay it off as quickly as possible, so that interest payments are minimised. (See the comparison on full payment vs no upfront cost.)

Green Loan

Various banks offer green personal loans for the purchase sustainable products. Usually the interest and fees are lower than for conventional loans. The problem: Most banks stipulate a minimum amount of $5,000. This is far too high to be used for solar hot water.

The great exception: Bendigo Bank. They offer a minimum loan amount of $2,000 - perfectly suited for a solar hot water.

There are no setup fees, no monthly or yearly fees and an interest rate of 10.5%. You are free to pay back early with no penalties.

The one huge difference to the NAB credit card is that you have to repay a loan of $2,000 within 2 years. The downside: you are paying more than you are saving in those 2 years. The upside: You stop paying for your hot water much earlier and save a bunch of interest.

You can find all details at the Bendigo Bank Green Loan website. They also have an online application process, but you need to go to a branch to finalise it.

Example

	Bendigo Bank Green Loan	NAB Low Rate Credit Card
Solar water heater cost	$2,000	$2,000
Repayment term	2 years	5 years
Frequency	Weekly	Monthly
Repayments	$22	$50
Total interest & costs	$220	$1,000

Please note that these are rough figures and make sure you check with the bank which particular financing option is suitable for your situation. The Bendigo Bank also offers a finance calculator to check out different scenarios.

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Find Out Whether You Can Benefit From Solar Hot Water.

You can get an instant quote right now. There are 23 simple questions that lets our online calculator work out the best solution for your situation. That way you know exactly whether you can benefit from solar hot water.

Start with 1. Find System.

1. Find System

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3. Review Options

4. Register Interest

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Tags: Green Loan

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 21st, 2008 at 11:44 am and is filed under Solutions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.