ESRI investigation: Borrowers’ confusion is costing them ‘thousands’

Confused borrowers are making expensive mistakes costing them thousands of euro extra in some cases, a new report has found.

An ESRI investigation into customers’ personal loan choices revealed consumers find it hard to understand how the length of a loan affects both the size of monthly repayments and the overall amount it costs to borrow, leading to inconsistent choices.

The impact of marketing and whether information was explicitly presented was also investigated by the report with the results showing consumers to be “vulnerable” to certain marketing techniques, according to report author Dr Pete Lunn.