
If you have good credit and want to consolidate high-interest debt, you may be eligible for a balance transfer credit card. However, you risk the bank foreclosing on your home if you can’t keep up with payments. Your home secures these forms of credit, so you may get a lower interest rate than you’d get with a personal loan.

If you own a home and have built equity in your house, you can get access to either a lump sum of cash or a revolving line of credit through a home equity loan or a HELOC, respectively.

A home equity loan or home equity line of credit (HELOC).Alternatives to Personal LoansĪlthough a personal loan can be a convenient way to finance purchases, consolidate your debt, or cover emergency expenses, there may be other options that are a better fit for your personal financial situation and goals: Review the loan fee disclosures so that you know what you’ll owe each month, what you’ll repay over the life of the loan, and what fees - including late fees, origination fees, and prepayment fees - to expect.

Secured loans often have lower interest rates than unsecured loans, but the lender can take your collateral and resell it to recoup their money if you fall behind on your payments.īefore signing a loan agreement, make sure to shop around and compare offers from multiple personal loan lenders to ensure you get the best deal. With secured loans, you have to give the lender some form of property that acts as security for the loan. Unsecured loans don’t require you to provide any form of collateral. Personal loans can be unsecured or secured. Having a cosigner can increase your chances of qualifying for a loan, and you can often get a lower interest rate than you’d get by applying on your own. If you have poor credit and cannot qualify for a loan on your own or can only get a loan with a very high interest rate, consider asking a friend or relative with good credit to cosign your loan application. What interest rate you receive is dependent on your credit score, selected loan term and amount, and other factors like the presence of collateral or whether you have a cosigner on your application. Personal loan rates and terms can vary widely from lender to lender. Personal loans can give you quick access to a lump sum of cash for many different purposes, from covering emergency expenses to consolidating debt to paying for large purchases. What to Know Before Getting a Personal Loan Even if you have poor credit, you may still be able to find a loan with lower interest rates and fees from another lender. However, we recommend that you exhaust all alternatives before turning to this lender. If you decide to take out a loan from Personify Financial, have a plan in place to pay off the debt as quickly as possible. We reached out to Applied Data Finance for an official statement but have not yet received a response as of the time of publication. According to the NCLC, some lenders use the legally grey strategy of rent-a-bank schemes to get around state interest rate caps.Īpplied Data Finance, Personify Financial’s parent company, was the subject of two class action lawsuits - one in Washington filed January 2020 and one in Florida filed May 2020 - for charging interest rates and fees that exceeded the states’ interest rate caps and attempting to circumvent state usury laws via a rent-a-bank scheme with a bank chartered in Utah (a state with no interest rate caps). Personify Financial is also one of the lenders listed on the National Consumer Law Center’s (NCLC) high-cost rent-a-bank watch list.

Depending on your state, APRs can be as high as 199.99%. While people in need of quick cash may find Personify Financial appealing, we can’t recommend borrowing from this lender because of its sky-high interest rates and fees. The company currently offers loans in 27 states, and it works with First Electronic Bank in some areas to originate loans. Qualified applicants can borrow up to $15,000 and have up to four years to repay the loan. Personify Financial, owned by Applied Data Finance, LLC, provides personal loans to borrowers with less-than-stellar credit. For more information, see How We Make Money. Some links on this page - clearly marked - may take you to a partner website and may result in us earning a referral commission. We want to help you make more informed decisions.
