Personal Loans FAQ

Taking out a personal loan can be a great way to help you with any future plans. Whether you’re looking to finance the renovation of your home, purchase a new vehicle, help finance your wedding and honeymoon with your loved one or simply consolidate a number of existing debts into one simple payment, a personal loan from Progressive Money could be the finance you’re searching for.

We strive to ensure each of our customers is certain that a personal loan is right for them before they make an application, and while we add as much information about these finance options on our personal loans page, there are a few additional questions we encounter frequently. That’s why we’ve taken the time to create this handy personal loans FAQ section, to address a few extra questions.

Are our personal loans secured or unsecured?

It’s important to understand the difference between the personal loan options we offer and secured loans.

A secured loan is often secured against your home, potentially putting your house at-risk should you unexpectedly find yourself unable to repay the loan. Simply put, a personal loan from Progressive Money is unsecured, meaning we won’t use your home as security when you take a loan out with us.

We do ask that customers who apply for our personal loans are homeowners.

Are personal loans a good idea?

After many years providing personal loans to our customers, we understand how much each person’s situation and reason for taking out a personal loan differs.

Personal loans can be a good idea in a variety of circumstances. For example, they can be a convenient solution for those looking to help cover the costs for certain things such as a new car, or help pay for a family holiday. Personal loans can also be a good idea for those looking to renovate or refurbish their home, such as purchasing essential appliances or fixing/replacing an old boiler.

Additionally, personal loans can also be a great solution for those looking to consolidate existing debts; we know how frustrating and sometimes, overwhelming it can be to have several payments and debts coming out of your bank account each month. By using a personal loan to pay off all of those outstanding debts, your monthly debt payments could come in the form of one simple and affordable re-payment.

What do I need to apply for a personal loan?

We strive to ensure our personal loans are suitable for as many customers as possible. However, we understandably have a few requirements and criteria that a customer for a personal loan needs to meet, in order to give us adequate confidence in their ability to consistently make the repayments.

Here is the criteria you need to meet in order to be able to apply for a personal loan:

Aged 18-70
To apply for our personal loan, you must be aged 18-70.
Your loan must be repaid by your 70^th birthday.

Employed or self-employed
We require you to have secure employment or history of self-employment. For self-employed customers, we may require some additional details on the past and current performance of your business.

Homeowner (not tenant)
We ask that our customers who apply for personal loans are homeowners and live in the property and are not tenants.

Live in England, Scotland or Wales
You must live in England, Scotland or Wales.

Here’s what you’ll need to make your application for a personal loan:

Address history
As with many forms of application or agreements, we’ll need to see your last 3 years of address history.

Bank details
You’ll need your bank account number and sort code to-hand to complete the personal loan application process, we use this to confirm your identity.

Online banking login details
You’ll also need your online banking login details available. These will allow you to provide us with an adequate history of bank transactions in order to assess whether the requested loan is affordable for you.

When applying for a personal loan online, we use data that you supply us with and check its authenticity through 3rd party applications, i.e. credit reference agencies.

It takes around 20 minutes to receive your pre-contract documents and if successful we will hold your quote for 30 days.

Once you have successfully completed an online application for a loan and passed all our online checks, we then need to do some final checks using your bank statements and providing we don’t require any further information we aim to release the money within 72 hours, however, we cannot guarantee this.

Can I pay off a personal loan early?

Yes, you can. Details of the payment to settle the loan must be requested by contacting our Relationship Management team by email: collections@app-em-progressivemoney-web-prod.azurewebsites.net

Are there fees included with a personal loan?

There are no upfront fees with a personal loan, therefore you will not be charged to make an application.

If your application is successful and you want to go ahead, there are two fees applicable to our loans. The first fee is a £390 administration fee which is for the setup and administration of your loan. The second fee is an acceptance fee of 10% of the loan value.

Both fees can either be included in the loan which means that you include the repayment of these across your monthly payments. This will result in borrowing more, therefore increasing the amount of interest paid and the total amount repayable.

Or you can pay the fees as part of your first payment. In this case, please note that your first payment may be considerably higher than your reoccurring payments.

Can I use a personal loan to consolidate debt?

Yes, you can. To consolidate existing finance, you can begin by supplying us with your creditor account details and full settlement amounts for each creditor you want to consolidate. As a responsible lender, at the point we release the funds, in all cases, creditors will be directly consolidated by us.

Please note that we do not do partial consolidations, and any debts you wish to consolidate must be settled in full.

We need to make you aware that if you are looking to consolidate other debts through the loan with us, whilst the monthly repayments may be lower you may be paying a higher rate of interest and extending the term of your loan which would mean that you pay back more in the longer term.

What happens if I miss a personal loan payment?

Where payments are made after the due date, daily interest may be charged on the outstanding balance until the payment is received.

Any missed monthly payment may incur a collections charge of £12.

Also, any cost in collecting the arrears may be passed onto you. Details of this can be found in your loan agreement.

Please also remember that missed payments will also show on your credit file, this may make it more difficult to obtain credit in the future and can affect your credit score. If you have any difficulties, please contact our Relationship Management team straightaway we may be able to help.

If you continue to fail to make payments, we may take legal action to recover the monies owed to us. This action could include a County Court Judgment, or an Attachment of Earnings Order or Charging Order on your property. A Charging Order means the debt is effectively secured against the property and must be repaid if the property is sold before any proceeds are received by you. This may happen but only in extreme cases and would have to go through a court process.

If you have any questions regarding personal loans that we have not covered in this FAQ page or Personal Loans page, please feel free to contact our expert loan advisors today on 0161 814 9383 for further information.