LoanNow: a Better Option for Personal Loans

After balancing your checkbook, you discover that you miscalculated how much money you have in your bank account and realize that your rent check will probably bounce. Or you’ve received a shutoff notice for your electric bill.  Or your tuition bill is due. Whatever the reason, you need extra money, and you need it now.  For such circumstances, many people seek personal loans.

But if you’re working or studying full-time, it can be difficult to find time to make a trip across town to apply for a loan.  Personal loans online provide an alternative.  Depending on your circumstances, you have several options, including online loans from banks and finance companies, peer-to-peer lending and payday loans.  Students may opt for private student loans. However, for many borrowers online personal loans from LoanNow represent the best choice for personal small loans as well as larger loans.

Private Student Loans Put a Big Price Tag on Your Education

For many students, federal financial aid doesn’t cover all their expenses. Others don’t qualify for financial aid from their schools or from the federal government. Working at least part time can ease the strain, but putting in too many hours away from the books may be detrimental to their grades. Besides, all work and no play make John or Jane very dull individuals.

Finding the best personal loans for students can mean the difference between enjoying much needed downtime with friends and dealing with money worries along with books and tests. For such students, private student loans and personal loans for students are among the few options available for financing their education. Especially if parents are willing to serve as co-signers, students are often able to obtain substantial private or personal loans.

But private student loans and personal loans for students carry significant drawbacks that federal student loans do not. First, interest must almost always be paid on private student loans even while students are still enrolled.

After leaving school, students who suffer financial hardships such as unemployment can apply for forbearance or other forms of financial relief for federal student loans, but private lenders are often unwilling to provide any relief. Any possessions that students may have put up as collateral, including computers and cars, could be seized if they default on private loans.

Online Personal Loans Can Be Convenient – If You Have Good Credit

Many banks and credit unions offer personal loans online to their customers. The main convenience is the opportunity to apply for credit online. Otherwise, the application procedure is much the same as for loans made in person, except borrowers must email or upload their documentation rather than bringing it in or mailing it in. Borrowers must adhere to the same standards of creditworthiness as for in-person loans. Processing time may or may not be faster for such loans than for traditional bank loans.

Finance companies such as Lending Tree and Quicken loans have emerged as another alternative for obtaining personal loans online. Unlike with bank loans or credit union loans where borrowers must be customers, finance company loans are available to the public. Nonetheless, the application procedure is much the same as for bank loans. Borrowers with marginal credit may be required to provide cosigners to be approved for personal loans online with finance companies.

Peer-to-peer lending from companies like Prosper and Lending Club is a fairly new player offering personal loans online. Peer-to-peer lending is actually a form of crowd funding, with borrowers posting their profiles along with their funding requests. Lenders choose which borrowers they wish to fund. Potential borrowers for most peer-to-peer lenders must be prepared to provide detailed personal information, and must have FICO scores in the mid-600 range to qualify. Even so, there is no guarantee of funding, and the process can be painfully slow.

Don’t Get Caught in the Trap of Online Payday Loans

If you have bad credit, your choices for personal loans are limited.  One option is to hock the expensive diamond and sapphire ring you inherited from your Aunt Gertrude.  But if you don’t have an Aunt Gertrude, you may be lured by websites with headlines boasting “no credit loans” or “bad credit personal loans.”

Don’t be fooled. Many of these websites are just fronts for scammers and identity thieves. Even if you find an actual online payday lender, you’re still not in the clear. Payday loans carry extremely high interest rates and unrealistically short repayment periods – in some cases as short as a week or 10 days.  That’s a recipe for long-term financial pain.

That’s because borrowers who cannot pay off payday loans in full are drawn into a cycle of making token payments while the bulk of what they owe is rolled over into renewed loans – with additional interest and fees.  This is what happens with four out of five payday loans, according to the Consumer Finance Protection Board. After a few rounds of renewals, many initially small payday loans of a few hundred dollars mushroom into four-figure debts. In fact, the average payday loan borrower takes eight loans annually, and remains in debt for five months out of the year, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts.

LoanNow is the Better Option for Personal Loans

LoanNow is an alternative to payday loans and pawn shops for personal loans.  Our online application is fast, convenient and confidential.  Applicants’ sensitive financial and personal information is not posted on a profile or shared with third parties. No fighting traffic to get across town to your local payday loan store before it closes. No risk of running into someone you know.

LoanNow also approves many borrowers that are turned down by banks and credit unions – while maintaining default rates that are much lower than those for payday loans. Unlike payday loans, your repayment is not based on your next paycheck. Instead, you make regular installment payments, just like you would for a bank loan. LoanNow never demands collateral – so you can keep Aunt Gertrude’s ring.  Plus we say NO to rollovers.

LoanNow also recognizes that college is tough enough without financial worries. LoanNow really makes the grade in providing the money that students need. We also work with struggling borrowers to help them get back on track with repaying their loans. From nearly every angle, LoanNow represents one of the best possible alternatives for personal loans!