Friendly & Flexible (egg loans)

Member Name: KathrynPenguin

Product:	egg loans
Date:	10/03/01 (2076 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: see opinion

Disadvantages: none

If you are thinking of getting a personal loan I can thoroughly recommend Egg as your lender. My colleague just signed up with them to borrow a small sum and I have, as always been thoroughly impressed with both the product and the service.

~~~~ Calculator ~~~~
Before applying for a loan visit the Egg website and head on over to the Loans section. Here you will find a loan calculator to help you decide how much you wish to borrow and over what period. The calculator allows you to enter how much you want to borrow; then either the Period you want to borrow over of the amount of monthly payments you can afford; you can also chose any payment protection options you require. Once you have entered the required information into the calculator you press the calculate button and you are given a loan illustration showing how much you will be paying and the number of payments you need to make.

~~~~ Budget Planner ~~~~
To work out how much you can afford to pay each month for a loan use the budget planner. Here you input details of all your monthly income and all your monthly expenses. To help you remember all your monthly outgoings there is a huge list of commitments that most people have. Simply input in the relevant boxes all your outgoings, the list is really great and includes all the regular utilities (gas, electric etc.) as well as things like holidays and going out and travel to and from work. When you have input all the information press the proceed button and your total spare cash is calculated, helping you to decide just how much you can afford to pay for your loan.

~~~~ Great Rates ~~~
At present Egg are offering the following rates for loans.

£1000 to £2499 @ 16.5% APR
£2500 to £4999 @ 14.5% APR
£5000 to £9999 @ 10.7% APR
£10000 to £15000 @ 9.9% APR

These are very competitive rates, using Moneyextra.com I did a comparison for the amount he wished to borrow and only 2 lenders offered be
tter interest rates. He chose to go with Egg as they offer more flexibility.

~~~~ Optional loan payment protection ~~~~
Whenever you take out a loan you are offered payment protection. With Egg you can choose the sort of payment protection you require. The options are

Accident and sickness
Unemployment or death
Or any combination of these but life cover cannot be taken on its own.

If you choose to protect against unemployment, accident or sickness you can also choose the deferment period (the time before you can claim). The deferment period can be either 30, 90 or 180 days. The amount you will need to pay for your payment protection is calculated according to the options you choose.

~~~~ Payment Breaks ~~~~~
Once you have been making your loan repayments for six months you can take a payment holiday of up to three months. The payment holidays can be taken in any 12 month period. This can be really handy if you find you need extra cash for a short period. After all you never know when you can suddenly get a huge drain on your finances, so you always have the peace of mind that can be gained from the ability to take a payment holiday.

~~~~ Overpayments ~~~~
With an Egg loan you can make an overpayment any time you want. Should you come into some money you can pay off a lump sum. Maybe you'll get lucky and earn a little extra through overtime, you can pay a little extra off of your Egg Loan.

~~~~ No Early Repayment Penalties ~~~~
Should you find yourself in a position to pay off your whole loan, you are able to do so. Some lenders charge an early repayment penalty to make up for the interest they won't get when you pay off your loan early.

~~~~ Interest Calculated Daily ~~~~
This is a huge advantage if you are able to make overpayments to your loan. Instead of being charged interest for a month after you have paid, you are only paying interest on what you ow
e each day.

~~~~ Increase and Decrease Payments ~~~~
As I have already mentioned you can overpay your loan at any time. You can also arrange to make a higher monthly payment permanently if you have got a nice big pay rise. Similarly if your circumstances have left you with a reduced income you can make arrangements to reduce your monthly payments and pay your loan over a longer period.

~~~~~ Online Application ~~~~
You complete all your application details online and you may get a decision within minutes. Egg were in contact the day after the application to confirm a few details and then tell you wether or not your application was successful over the phone.

~~~~ Money In a Week ~~~~
Once your application has been accepted Egg post you the completed forms for you to sign. If you sign and send them straight back your money will be in your nominated bank account within the week. You can also specify a date by which you want the money transferred, this can be up to 3 months away.

~~~~ Choose Your Repayment Date ~~~~
You tell Egg which day of the month you wish them to collect your monthly payments. The collection will commence once you have the money, when your next nominated date comes up. This allows you to make sure the payments are collected just after payday.

~~~~ The bottom Line ~~~~
I helped my colleague to choose Egg because the flexible options are just what he needed at the moment. In the next 18 months he is expecting two payouts which will allow him to pay chunks off of the loan. We found a slightly better rate elsewhere but the flexibility he wanted wasn't there so he went to Egg instead. Also I have Egg shares, which I'm hoping will one day be worth what I paid for them so every bit of business they get helps me!

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