What Does "Existing Customer" Mean for a Loan?

When you compare loan offers, you’ll almost always run into a label like “for existing customers” or “for account holders.” The rate difference tied to that status can range from a few tenths of a point to almost two percentage points, which over the life of a mortgage adds up to thousands of euros. This isn’t a marketing trick; it’s standard bank practice.

In short:

• Almost every bank offers a lower rate to existing customers: in our data the gap is roughly 0.4 to 1.6 percentage points, depending on the bank.
• At a couple of banks (OTP, LON), the very lowest rate is also gated behind a paid package, not just existing-customer status.
• Before comparing, always check whether the published rate actually applies to your status. The most reliable way to check is via APR, not just the nominal rate.

Why do banks distinguish between existing and new customers at all?

A bank would rather work with a customer who already has an account with it, a regular income landing on that account, and maybe another product on top. That customer represents a stable cash flow and less work verifying creditworthiness (the bank already sees the deposits). So the bank prices them a lower margin. A new customer means more paperwork and more risk, so the price is typically higher. In practice, the lowest rates published on a bank’s rate card are almost always tied to existing-customer status.

The baseline tier: a current account with your salary or pension

At most banks, the basic condition for the better price is a current account with a regular monthly salary or pension payment landing on it. That’s the case at, among others, NLB, OTP, Intesa Sanpaolo, UniCredit and DBS. UniCredit’s own rate card literally describes it as “an existing or newly opened current account with an income deposit.”

In our data, the gap between the existing-customer and non-existing-customer price for consumer loans runs roughly 0.4 to 1.6 percentage points, depending on the bank and term. The mechanism is the same for mortgages, and the gap varies just as much between banks there too: at the banks that publish both prices, it tends to sit around one percentage point.

If you’re not yet that bank’s customer, most will still treat you the same way, since you can open the account at the same time as the loan. Just keep in mind that the account’s monthly fee eats into some of the interest saving.

The next tier: paid packages

Some banks go a step further and reserve their lowest rate for customers holding a paid package, not just existing customers. This is currently the case at least at OTP (where individual loans have up to three tiers above the plain existing-customer price, e.g. the Komplet package, Banka na delu, and the Premium package) and LON (where the lowest rate is only available to holders of the LON Premium package; without it, the standard Consumer Loan applies). Since these offers and package names change over time, you’ll find the current rates for both examples in the “Currently with us” box at the top of this article, where those numbers refresh automatically from our data.

At the other banks we track (NLB, UniCredit, Intesa Sanpaolo, DBS, Gorenjska banka, Delavska hranilnica, …), we don’t currently find that extra package tier. There, existing-customer status (a current account with an income deposit) already is the lowest published price.

These packages typically come with their own monthly fee and often require yet another product at the same bank. So it’s worth checking whether the lowest published price actually applies to a plain current account, or only to a paid package.

A concrete example: multiple tiers on the same loan

At banks where a paid package sits on top of existing-customer status, the price ladder is often three or four tiers: non-customer, existing customer with no package, existing customer with a basic package, and existing customer with the priciest (e.g. Premium) package. Each tier shaves off a little more. You’ll find the current rates for a concrete example (OTP’s mortgage) in the “Currently with us” box at the top of the article.

If a rate card only printed the lowest number with no explanation, plenty of people would assume that’s their price as a plain existing customer, when it’s often actually the highest, package-gated tier. It’s always worth checking what that gap means in euros for your own amount and term in the loan calculator.

Why this can mislead you when comparing offers

The most common trap: a bank publishes a very low rate “for existing customers,” but you aren’t that bank’s customer and don’t have (or want) its package. Your actual price ends up higher than what you first saw. The second trap: you open the account and the package, but the monthly fees and any required insurance partly or fully cancel out the interest saving.

Some banks only publish the existing-customer price (and don’t say how much more a non-customer pays); others have a very loose, or very strict, definition of who counts as an existing customer. So when comparing, always check:

• whether the rate applies to existing customers only, or to non-customers too,
• whether it also requires a (paid) package,
• what that package or account actually costs per month.

The most reliable metric for comparison remains the APR (annual percentage rate), which already factors in these extra costs. See Mortgage APR and Why Your Bank Doesn’t Tell You About It for why banks don’t lead with it themselves. For why even an identical nominal rate at two banks doesn’t mean an identical total cost, see Why Two Loans With the Same Interest Rate Can Differ by Thousands of Euros.

How we show this on FinPortal.si

On our mortgage comparison and consumer loan comparison, we clearly mark whether the shown rate applies to existing customers only or to non-customers too, and where it also requires a paid package. An offer gated behind a specific package (e.g. “Requires Premium package”) now gets labeled as such, instead of being silently shown as a plain existing-customer rate, which is exactly what happened with OTP’s offer on our site until a bank representative flagged it to us.

The goal is that you see a realistically comparable price, not just the lowest number printed on a bank’s rate card. If a bank doesn’t publish a non-customer price at all, we say so explicitly rather than guessing.

For a concrete calculation of your installment and total cost, use the loan calculator: you’ll quickly see how the payment changes depending on whether you enter the existing-customer or non-customer rate. Curious how much loan you can actually afford given your income? Check your credit capacity.

What to check before you go to the bank

1. Check whether you already meet the condition for the lowest price at your current bank (income deposit, maybe you already hold a package too).
2. If you’re not yet a customer, work out the net saving: the interest difference from the lower rate, minus any monthly cost of a new account or package, over the remaining loan term.
3. Ask the bank directly whether the lowest published rate applies to a plain current account with a salary deposit, or only to a paid package. This rarely appears on the first page of an offer.
4. Compare by APR, not the nominal rate: APR already includes the account-management and arrangement fees that the nominal rate hides.
5. Remember that individually negotiated offers are often better than the published starting price, especially with stable income and a good credit history. The published rate is a starting point for negotiation, not necessarily the final price.

Before deciding, run your own numbers in the loan calculator or check current offers on our loan comparison page.