Author: Daniel Tan
Written at: 26 Sep, 2024
1)Review websites can help you choose the best credit card, the best savings account and so on with their extensive research on standardized products. But without access to your individualized profile, it might not be very helpful when it comes to taking a loan. “Up to $$$” and “as low as x%” mean nothing if they do not apply to you.
Unlike factual information that applies to everyone, which a writer can just research - such as a mile or point earned for each dollar spent - how much you can borrow and the interest rate you will pay varies from individual to individual due to each's credit score & profile. Without applying directly to the lenders and providing them with all the documents required to make an assessment, you just cannot know for sure what they can offer you.
If one lender is always the cheapest to all profiles, the others would have closed shop right?
This is often why you look hunt for it, you will see disclaimers like these hidden somewhere :
meant for illustrative purposes only
recommended rates only, you may or not may be eligible based on your credit profile.
That is probably why countries like China and India are clamping down on this and the following type of websites while in the US, such companies had to settle lawsuits with the FTC as there was no real comparison and they are luring excited customers in via bait and switch or clickbait.
2)Some Comparison websites in the market work by using basic filters to narrow down which lenders "you should" speak to, but you still need to approach them one by one. Some go by pre-approved offers by pre-negotiating with lenders on a few broad sets of credit profiles via some basic questions. e.g:
Group A : 1%
Group B: 10%
Group C: Reject
However, that means if you could be charged at 1.1%, you would be charged at 10% . For example, if they only access you based on information from SingPass which does not process all the necessary information required for proper underwriting. You may notice the quantum offered tends to be lower as well due to the simplified underwriting process.
Some platforms provide a so-called "in-principle approval" "on behalf" of lenders. However, weaker borrowers often face rejection when they eventually meet the lender. This creates a false impression that the loan has been secured, only for borrowers to discover otherwise much later. For those in urgent need of financing, this delay can be frustrating and costly, which is why regulators are increasingly concerned about such practices.
FindTheLoan.com works differently, similar to like if you had applied with a lender directly with your full set of information since day 1, except you can choose to forward your application to multiple lenders at once, instead of having to fill up their forms repeatedly, with the lenders quoting you directly with actual loan offers after they have made a full credit assessment.
3)You could also use a loan broker, especially if you have a good one you can trust. I mean, why go through all the trouble of visiting the lenders(or their websites) one by one, when someone can do the legwork for you?
However, that may bring you more issues than it is worth. It is an industry-known fact that loan brokers may not just cherry-pick which customers to prioritise, they may also cherry-pick which lenders' offer to only show you especially if they are owned by a lender, which some are. This is why the UK's FCA had to regulate them due to the conflict of interest they can bring. At the same time, the US amended the Truth in Lending Act after the 2008 mortgage crisis via the Dodd-Frank Act, due to their unethical conduct that contributed to the crisis.
That is why we spent years developing a platform capable of handling the complexity of the loan application process between borrowers and lenders, removing the middleman entirely and providing a much more transparent and efficient process. As there is no strict legal definition of a loan marketplace, a couple of other brokers claim to be one or a platform. But when you look closer, you will often find pages on their websites that there is a loan specialist/consultant to "assist you". Should you decide to use a broker, we recommend you read the article here on how to select a suitable loan broker and countries that have enacted laws due to the conflict of interest they bring.
What makes us uniquely different and 1st in the market, is there are no humans in the process that may favour one lender or borrower over another. See us like a CRM or tool, where you send your enquiries directly to dozens of lenders with just one submission, who will compete to respond to you directly on the platform after assessing your application.
The loan industry is opaque, full of misinformation, and conflict of interest & we are here to change that. Thus in the spirit of transparency - there are tech-enabled brokers (brokers who use a website or some tech to aid some of their manual work) that started before us but only became fully digitalized after us (only for personal loans due to the simpler credit assessment process).
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