Loan information and advice

What exactly are loans?

A loan is any financial assistance that you receive from a professional lender with the agreement that you’ll pay it back, typically with interest. There are numerous types. We list the most common ones below:

• Personal Loans: These are loans of various sizes that you can use for any purpose, and are given based on your personal credit history.
• Secured Loans: These are backed up with an asset, which can be repossessed by the lender should you be unable to pay. Car financing and mortgage are common examples.
• Unsecured Loans: These loans aren’t backed up with anything, and are given on the basis of ‘good faith’, which is the lender’s belief that you can repay based on credit history and other factors.
• Instalment Loans: These loans allow borrowers to repay the loan in several smaller payments rather than one large payment. Depending on the lender, you may have some flexibility in how much and how often you pay.
• Payday Loans: These are short-term loans that you will usually pay in full by your next payday, and they have rigid due dates. These typically have a higher APR because of the shorter length of lending.
• Business Loans: These have uses specified for business purposes, and are given based on your business’ previous and expected performance.
• Online Loans: Though all of the above can be offered online, the key difference is that online loans can get you your cash much more quickly than traditional loans, sometimes less than 15 minutes^# after you get your application approved.