Comparison · Bank or broker
Written by a consultancy, which is why it starts with the cases where you should not hire one. Five situations where going direct is better, five where it is not, and the seven differences that decide it.
The short answer
Go straight to your bank when you already have a relationship manager there, your company comfortably meets the usual bar, the amount is modest, and you have time to wait out one queue — you deal with the decision-maker directly and there is no intermediary in the arrangement at all. Use a loan consultancy when you have already been declined, when your profile is unusual enough that you cannot tell which lenders would even look at it, or when your alternative is applying to five or six banks at once, because each application leaves its own enquiry on your credit file and a cluster of them in a short window is read as a signal. The two routes are not competing for the same borrower: one is cheapest and simplest when you already fit, and the other exists for when you do not know whether you fit, or already know you did not.
Last reviewed . Everything below describes general market practice in Singapore rather than any named lender’s policy, and all financing is subject to lender approval.
Go direct
These are not hedged concessions. In each of the five situations below the direct route is genuinely the better one, and a consultancy that told you otherwise would be selling you something you do not need. A loan consultancy earns its place by solving a problem. If you do not have the problem, you do not need the solution.
You already have a real relationship with your bank
Not an account — a relationship manager who knows the business, has seen the turnover for years, and can walk the file to the credit team. That is genuine advantage, it is not transferable, and nobody can create it for you. If you have it, use it first.
You comfortably meet the usual bar
Several years of trading, consistent credits through the account, directors with clean personal credit conduct, IRAS and ACRA in order. If none of that is in doubt, you are not a difficult file, and a difficult file is the problem a consultancy is built to solve. Going direct is the shorter path.
The amount is modest relative to your turnover
Smaller facilities are the most standardised thing a lender writes. There is correspondingly less to negotiate and less to structure, so there is less for an intermediary to add.
You want the cheapest possible outcome and you have time
Approaching two or three lenders yourself, in sequence rather than all at once, keeps the arrangement between you and the lender with no third party in it. It costs you the time and the legwork. If you have both and you fit, that is a rational trade.
You would rather keep it entirely in-house
Some owners simply do not want a third party holding their statements and their directors' particulars. That is a legitimate position and needs no business justification.
The common thread is fit. If your company clears the usual bar without argument, the file is not the hard part — and everything a consultancy does is aimed at the file being the hard part.
The other side
The cost of the direct route is not a fee. It is the cost of finding out you did not fit, after the finding out has already been recorded.
You have already been declined
A decline is the point at which going direct stops being the cheap route, because the obvious door has already been tried. The useful next step is narrowing which class of lender is realistic rather than repeating the same application elsewhere. What to do after a rejection.
Your profile is unusual
A company under a year old, thin or seasonal turnover, foreign shareholding, nothing to pledge, a director with a mark on their file. Unusual is not the same as unfundable — it means the set of lenders who would look at it is small and not obvious from outside. What lenders generally look for.
You cannot tell which lenders fit
Appetite is not published. Which lenders are currently writing which kind of file, and on what terms, is knowledge that comes from submitting across a panel — it is the one thing a borrower approaching a single bank genuinely cannot see.
Your alternative is applying everywhere at once
This is the strongest case, and it is a mechanical one rather than a matter of opinion. Applying to six banks in a fortnight is six separate enquiries on your file, and a cluster of them in a short window is read by later lenders as a signal about your circumstances — often before anyone has assessed the business at all. Does applying to multiple banks hurt your credit grade?.
The structure matters more than the headline number
Tenure, the scope and cap of a personal guarantee, conditions precedent, what triggers a review — these are the terms that decide what the borrowing actually costs and commits you to. They are negotiable, and they are the part most borrowers do not know to negotiate.
Note what is not on that list: nobody gets you a better answer from the same lender by asking more nicely. A credit enquiry is the lender’s, the credit decision is the lender’s, and the facility letter is theirs to issue. What can change is which lenders see the file and what state it is in when they do.
Side by side
Market norms rather than any named institution’s policy. Read the direct column first: if it is not fairly stated, neither is the rest.
| Dimension | Straight to your bank | Through a consultancy |
|---|---|---|
| Who you can reach | One lender — the products on your own bank's shelf, under its own current appetite. | A panel of lenders, including finance companies and private financial institutions a walk-in customer would not think to approach. |
| Who assesses you | That bank's credit team, applying that bank's criteria. There is no second opinion. | The consultancy screens the profile against what it knows of each lender's appetite first; the lender still makes the credit decision. |
| Cost | No intermediary in the arrangement. Whatever the lender charges is the whole of it. | The lender's own charges, plus whatever the consultancy's arrangement is. Ask for that in writing before you engage anyone. |
| Effect on your credit file | One lender's enquiry per application. Six banks approached separately means six. | One prepared submission to the lenders identified as realistic, rather than a broad sweep. The enquiry is still the lender's, not the consultancy's. |
| Time | One queue. Fast if you fit, and a restart from the beginning if you do not. | Time spent on the file before submission, in exchange for not discovering a mismatch after the enquiry has already landed. |
| Who prepares the file | You do. Statements, financials, Notice of Assessment, director particulars — assembled and chased by you. | The consultancy assembles and presents it, and is answerable for the gaps a credit officer will find. |
| If you are declined | You are told no, commonly without a specific reason, and it is on you to work out what to change. | The decline is diagnostic input: it narrows which lender class is realistic next, without another sweep of applications. |
Scroll the table sideways on a narrow screen. All financing is subject to lender approval, on either route.
Worth saying plainly
Access to secret rates. Pricing is set by the lender against the risk it sees in the file. What is negotiable is structure — the tenure, the scope and cap of a personal guarantee, whether collateral changes the shape of the offer, and the conditions that have to be satisfied before disbursement. Those are worth negotiating on either route, and it is where most of the value sits.
Comparing two offers is straightforward. It is not, and this trips up borrowers going direct as often as anyone. A flat rate quoted on the original amount produces a smaller-looking number than the effective interest rate for the same facility. Two offers can only be compared once both are on the same basis, and the cheaper-sounding one is frequently not the cheaper one.
Government-supported facilities need an intermediary. They do not. Facilities under the Enterprise Financing Scheme are applied for through a participating financial institution, which you can approach yourself, and that institution still makes its own credit decision. Two participating institutions can reach different answers on the same file — which is a reason to know which one to approach, not a reason to need someone to approach it for you.
Straight answers
Often, yes — going direct means there is no intermediary in the arrangement, so whatever the lender charges is the whole of the cost. That is a real advantage and it is worth taking when you already fit a lender's criteria. It is not the whole comparison, though: a facility with a longer tenure or a narrower personal guarantee can be worth more over its life than the absence of an intermediary, and the cheapest arrangement is worth nothing if the application is declined. Ask any consultancy how it is paid, and by whom, before you engage it.
Nobody can promise that, and you should be wary of anyone who does — the credit decision belongs to the lender in both routes. What changes after a decline is the range of lenders being considered and how the file is presented to them. A profile that does not fit one bank's current appetite may fit another lender's, and it may fit none. All financing is subject to lender approval.
Speaking to a consultancy does not, because an assessment is not an application and nothing reaches a lender until you say so. What lands on your file is the lender's own enquiry when an application is submitted, and that is the same enquiry whichever route it came through. The difference is how many are generated: one considered submission leaves one, and a sweep of banks leaves one each.
Not in the sense of a better or worse credit decision — a lender assesses the file, and the file is the file. What commonly differs is completeness: a submission that already contains the statements, financials and director particulars a credit officer will ask for does not stall while documents are chased. That is a presentation difference rather than a preferential one, and you can achieve the same thing yourself with enough care.
Yes, and it is a common sequence. Try your own bank first if you have a relationship there, and bring in a consultancy if the answer is no or the terms are not workable. What to avoid is running both at once without telling anyone, because that is how the same lender receives your file twice, and how you end up with more enquiries on your credit file than the situation warranted.
In practice the words are used interchangeably in Singapore, and neither is a licensing category — moneylenders are licensed by the Ministry of Law and banks by MAS, but an intermediary that introduces a borrower to a lender is not the same thing as either. The label matters less than two questions you can ask directly: which lenders do you actually submit to, and how are you paid. Both should be answerable in a sentence.
Lead Advisor only introduces clients to banks. We do not recommend loan products, negotiate terms, or prepare or submit loan applications. Discuss eligibility, documents, rates and any application directly with the bank.
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