The Australian market has changed a lot in the last twenty years. Deregulation and the growth of competition have meant many different lenders are now available to modern consumers in addition to the traditional banks and building societies. Each of these has a range of loans so there are literally thousands of products on the market today.

These options will fall into basic categories and these can be split or combined in different ways to suit the individual borrower’s needs. Loans also have optional features that can be utilised. Features like ‘Interest Only’ payments, Re-draw options, and linked credit card or cheque book facilities. We can define the ‘basic’ loan options for most borrowers in this way.