The growing competition among financiers to tap the financial affluence in the country by providing more and more personal loans has been a boon to the customer who now enjoys a host of additional benefits that are being offered by the banks and financing institutions. There are several wonderful schemes on offer which make the experience of availing a personal loan all the more pleasant. The wide range of innovative features that are attached to a simple personal loan to make it appear irresistible is a direct product of the competitiveness that exists in the market today among financiers of all categories.
Some Additional Benefits offered with Personal Loans
Processing Fees: Many banks come up with processing fee schemes from time to time to attract more customers for their personal loans. At times there are provisions for refund of the processing fees after the approval of the loan amount.
Prepayment Penalty: Similar to the processing fee waiver some financiers also offer waiver of prepayment penalties on personal loan availed from their banks.
Personal Accident insurance: many banks currently are offering to buy a personal accident insurance for the customer who takes a personal loan from them. This is a good move for the customer who gets the benefits as well as the bank whose loan is secured against accidental death of the borrower.
Balance Transfer Facility: in order to enhance the total amount disbursed the banks are even permitting customers to transfer balance of their outstanding loans from other sources to a single persona loan account. This makes tracking and payment more convenient for the customer.
Zero balance Savings Account: Personal loan applicants are being offered zero balance savings accounts in the banks from where they are planning to take the loan.
Credit Card: banks are even offering zero annual fee credit cards to the people who are taking personal loans from.
Financial Advice: Some banks are evening arranging for free personal finance advice for their personal loan customers from experts in order to lure more and more customers. In some cases the customers are allowed access to personal finance planning sites for a fixed period which would have been chargeable otherwise.
Free Tax Filing Online: The personal loan customer is now being offered assistance in filing the tax returns online by the executives of the bank.
Online Application: A relatively new trend of online personal application is also being offered by some banks where the customer does need to approach the bank at all and after deciding the eligibility the required documents are picked from the customers’ residence and the loan disbursed without the customer even having to visit the bank even for a single time. The eligibility for such facility is limited as of now.
These attempts to woo the prospective customer by the banks have resulted in substantial increase in disbursement of personal loans in the country. While the benefits are wonderful for the customer it needs to be kept in mind that the bank may turn equally hostile in case one defaults on the repayment of the installments of the loan. Thus discretion and judgment has to be exercised in the decision to avail the loan. Selection of the loan should be based on more concrete aspects such as repayment tenure, interest rates and EMI rather that the freebies being doled out by the banks while availing a personal loan.