Finder’s Personal and Car Loan Awards methodology

The data and analysis Finder’s experts used to determine the best personal and car loans for each category of the 2024 Finder Product Awards.

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Key takeaways

  • The awards analyse over 600 loans and 22,104 data points for comprehensive evaluation.
  • Interest rates are weighted highest influencing 70% to 80% of a loan's final award score.
  • Scores are dynamically compared against competitors with more recent performance weighted higher.

What are the Finder Personal and Car Loan Awards?

Finder's Personal and Car Loan Awards recognise market-leading secured, unsecured and car loans, with a ratings methodology that compares features for 600 loans in our database.

Why you can trust our research

Document with pencil
275
personal loans assessed
Computer monitor and cellphone displaying charts
339
car loans assessed
Web browser displaying charts with magnifying glass
22,104
data points analysed

Selection criteria

Providers were included in the categories if their products were currently available, Finder had a full data set for the previous 12 months, and met the following criteria:

  • Personal Loans - Secured: Not a car loan, requires security and has a valid interest rate.
  • Personal Loans - Unsecured: Does not require security and has a valid interest rate.
  • Car Loans - New: Car loan available for new vehicles.
  • Car Loans - Used: Car loan available for used vehicles.
  • Car Loans - Electric Vehicles: Car loan specifically for "green" or "electric" purposes.

Scoring

Metrics scored using either the tiered scores when dealing with categorical data points or a dynamic scoring when dealing with numeric data. Finder's dynamic scoring means a product's metric is scored in comparison to the data points of all the other competitor products.

Interest rateDynamic scoring
Monthly service feeDynamic scoring
Application feeDynamic scoring

Weights

Interest rate70%70%80%80%80%
Monthly service fee15%15%10%10%10%
Application fee15%15%10%10%10%

Final award score

The final award score is calculated by first calculating a score for each of the previous 12 months. This evaluates each product against the competing products in those particular months. This score is calculated by multiplying the score for each metric by the weight percentage and summing the weighted scores:

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The final award score is calculated by taking a weighted average of the monthly scores with more recent months being weighted progressively more. This final award score is then ranked to determine the overall winners for each category.

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Ties

In the event of a tie between two loans, Finder uses profile-based scoring to decide a winner.

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