[Financial Insider] "Didn’t you know K-Bank mortgage loans can be approved in just two days?"

Loan execution within 2 days for living stability, 3 days for refinancing, and 5 days for purchase
Much faster than other banks
Refinancing interest rates still in the 3% range
Collection of records on searched apartment loan limits and interest rates also included

Manager Yoonsoo Lee, Housing Finance Planning and Operations, Marketing Headquarters, K Bank. Photo by Younghan Heo younghan@

"A familiar character like a competitor? We don’t have that. K-Bank advocates practicality. Mortgage loans involve so many documents and are complicated. We have minimized that process as much as possible. For living stabilization funds, it takes 2 days; for refinancing loans, 3 days; and for home purchase funds, only 5 days for customers to receive the money?no other bank offers this. Fast speed, low interest rates. That’s what matters most."

On the 4th, at K-Bank headquarters in Jung-gu, Seoul, Lee Yoon-su, Senior Manager of K-Bank’s Housing Finance Camp, said, "Living stabilization funds are executed immediately upon approval and can be scheduled even on weekends." Mortgage loans are divided into three purposes: purchase, refinancing, and living stabilization. From application to execution, it usually takes about a week at commercial banks. KakaoBank advises applying 20 days in advance for home purchases and 15 days for living stabilization. Compared to competitors, our speed is much faster.

"Documents such as employment certificates, income proofs, and resident registration copies, which customers originally had to obtain and upload photos of, have been automated by introducing public MyData. The interest rate and limit screening process, which used to be divided into preliminary and final reviews, has been reduced to one step. While commercial banks conduct manual reviews, we have accelerated the process by automating it through checklists."

As of the 2nd of this month, the variable interest rate for refinancing is 3.78% to 5.77% per annum, and for purchase and living stabilization, it is 4.18% to 6.04% per annum. The reason we can still maintain rates in the 3% range is that we lowered the mortgage loan interest rate by 0.38 percentage points on the 25th of last month. The manager said, "As a non-face-to-face bank, we have more capacity to enhance interest rate competitiveness."

K-Bank’s main mortgage loan customers are in their 30s and 40s. Among them, refinancing demand from those who have previously taken out a mortgage reaches 50%. "People buying an apartment for the first time tend to seek consultations at commercial banks, while those with mortgage experience are confident and tend to refinance easily through internet banks," he said. Among refinancing customers, there was a case where the interest rate was lowered by 2.69 percentage points, reducing annual interest costs by 13 million KRW.

Manager Yoonsu Lee, Housing Finance Planning and Operations, Marketing Headquarters, K Bank. Photo by Younghan Heo younghan@

K-Bank started mortgage loans in August 2020 with the intention of launching innovative non-face-to-face services. The manager said, "It was difficult to implement all the procedures?many documents, setting up mortgage liens, multiple bank visits?at once through the app, but we started with the belief that once created, it would be competitive. We evolved it step by step by incorporating customer feedback."

A representative feature is the "collection of loan limits and interest rate records for apartments I searched." "Until now, when visiting real estate sites, if you liked a certain apartment unit, you had to write it down and visit banks one by one to inquire about limits and interest rates, which was very inconvenient. As long as the customer’s income is accurate, you can enter the address in the K-Bank app and know the limits and interest rates within minutes. You can see all the apartments you have searched and their loan conditions at a glance. The biggest burden when buying a house is the financial load, so we wanted to help customers make decisions quickly."