Loan companies rely on credit reference agencies to make a decision on whether to lend money to potential applicants. Loan companies solely exist to record your history of dealing with credit and it works 2 ways. Lenders will request information from reference agencies on your credit profile if you make an application, but at the same time, lenders will also report how well you are managing your credit to these agencies (if you have a loan with them) so that the agencies can maintain a log for future reference. If you've defaulted on credit payments (i.e. missed payments) in the past then the credit agencies will know this and will log each missed payment, if you have multiple defaults then you will build up a bad credit history and therefore find it difficult to get loans or financial products in the future.
So how do you break out of this vicious cycle? Well you need to prove to credit reference agencies that you can repay credit in a timely and responsible fashion - the way you do this is to take out finance and then repay it on time so that this is reported back to the credit reference agencies. So, to start with you need to get credit - this is where guarantor loans can help. You can take out a guarantor loan even if you have poor credit history! This is because you also need a guarantor for the loan who will 'back' your application and provide extra security for the lender. This allows you to get a loan at a competitive rate and repay as you wish.
Once you've got a guarantor loan, the guarantor lender will then start to report your repayment habits back to the agencies. Once you've made payments on time for a few months this will have already helped your credit history - lenders will look at it and see that you can make repayments and therefore your chances of getting more credit will be improved substantially in the future. Simply make sure you continue to repay the loan on time (or pay it off as a lump sum) and your history will improve month by month. After a while of doing this, you will be much more appealing to lenders in the future and therefore the APRs you can get will drop substantially!
One final thing; make sure that any company you choose to take a loan from, reports back to the credit reference agencies, this will ensure that your credit rating will improve as you pay back your credit.
George Thistle writes for Guarantor Loans Company and researches into the emerging guarantor loans market.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=George_Thistle
If you're a senior in high school who's planning for college but you haven't yet picked your school, you're in the sweet spot.
The decisions you make in the coming months will define your life in more ways than you can imagine. Your choice of college and major could allow you to enjoy life after graduation relatively unburdened by debt from student loans, or you could end up saddled with a financial burden that could interfere with you being able to buy a car, qualify for a credit card, rent or own a home, or in some cases, even get a job. In other words, now is a great time to pay attention!
Few decisions are more important right now than where you go to college and what you study. These two decisions will largely control how much your education will cost.
Cost, more than any other single factor, will determine how much student loan debt you'll be carrying when you leave school and how much financial stress you could be facing after graduation.
1) Know your realistic earning potential as a new college grad.
First and foremost, know the average starting salary of the career path you plan to embark upon. Don't rely on "average" salaries for a profession, which are often skewed by the higher salaries earned by workers with more seniority and experience. Dig deeper and find out how much you can reasonably be expected to make in your first year on the job.
As a general rule of thumb, if you're going to use student loans to pay for school, limit your borrowing to no more than the amount you can reasonably expect to earn in your first year of full-time employment, assuming that you're working in your chosen field.
And as long as you're researching careers, spend some time looking into the overall occupational outlook for your desired profession - what kinds of jobs are available? what's the unemployment rate for your chosen field? are recent grads getting hired to do this work or are most of the positions going to more experienced workers? - and how likely you are to be working right out of school.
2) Know what different college decisions will cost you.
About two-thirds of college students take on at least some school loan debt in pursuit of their college degree. For these students who take out college loans, the average debt burden is currently almost $24,000, according to FinAid.org.
But as with job salaries, don't make the mistake of being fooled by averages. Your own college loan debt levels can be much higher than average if you attend a private school or an out-of-state public university or if you choose to live on campus while in school.
By the same token, you may take on much less debt than average in student loans if you attend an in-state school, live at home, or study for two years at a community college before transferring to a four-year institution.
3) Educate yourself about student loans, and only use them as a last resort.
Other factors that can affect your need for school loans include whether or not you (or your parents) have been able to set aside money for your college expenses and for how long; how much financial aid you've been able to amass in college scholarships and grants; and whether you're a work-and-save or a work-and-spend kind of person.
Having a good understanding of college loans and of how money, personal credit, and interest rates work never hurts either.
4) Plan to graduate in four years or less.
Only slightly more than one-third of college students now finish their undergraduate degree within four years. This trend has significant financial implications because the more time you spend on campus, the more expensive your degree becomes.
If your choice of major has relatively modest earning potential, endeavor to complete your degree as fast as you can, particularly if you're going to be relying even partially on college loans.
An extra 12 to 18 months on campus not only means another year or more of tuition and fees (and taking on even more school loan debt to cover those additional costs), but your existing student loans, unless they're federally subsidized, will accrue interest during that time as well, before you're asked to start making payments on them.
With bigger student loan balances and months more in accumulated interest charges, instead of having your school loans paid off within the standard repayment term of 10 years, you may find yourself still making college loan payments well into your late 30s or 40s.
5) Have a plan, and stay on track.
One important key to graduating quickly, saving money on college course fees, and cutting back on your need for school loans is to have a good idea of your education and career goals and to avoid making drastic course changes after you've already invested some time in your declared major.
If you find that your initial choice of major won't make you happy or you don't have the skills or aptitude to carry out your initial plan, try to find an alternate major or field of study that can take advantage of the coursework you've already done so that you don't have to start again from scratch in earning credits toward your degree.
6) Have a backup plan.
There's no better time than right now to be starkly realistic about how much a college education costs. If you plan to rely on family assistance or a part-time job to get you through college, sketch out a Plan B in case something happens to change your job or your family's financial situation.
If you'll be living on campus, could you move back home to cut room-and-board costs? If you won't be working, could you start? Could you transfer to your state public university or to a local community college?
Also make sure to familiarize yourself with scholarship and grant resources, federal education loans and private student loans (and the difference between the two), and other ready sources of money for college that you can turn to should you need to.
college loans, college scholarships
Jeff Mictabor is an enthusiast on the topic of student loan issues in the news. He has been writing for the past 10 years for a variety of education publications. He now offers his writing services on a freelance basis.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jeffrey_Mictabor
With recent technological advancements in the financial industry, banks throughout the United States (and the rest of the world) continue to search for tools to optimize traditionally manual processes. With administrative costs comprising such a large portion of a bank's annual expenses, banking software systems that provide effective automation will continue to experience solid growth for decades to come. A major trend among banks is the automation of loan files. As any banker knows, a single file can represent mountains of paperwork and possibly years of work. This article takes a look at the ways banks are using bank imaging technology to streamline the management of loan and credit files.
Questions For Consideration
Before considering your options for loan file automation, it is wise to first review some basic questions about your bank's current situation. By thinking critically about your bank workflow as it stands today, your financial institution can maximize return on investment. The following questions may be helpful when starting the process of optimization.
* How efficient / effective is your current paper loan file system?
* How much money does your financial institution spend each year creating and organizing physical files?
* How frequently do physical files have to be transferred from one branch to another?
* Things to consider: courier costs - routing for credit analysis, approval officer review, etc
* Has your bank every misplaced, damaged, or completely lost a loan file, creating mountains of duplicate administrative work to restore the original files?
* Have customers or lending officers ever complained about the length of time it takes to approve or update loan files at your bank?
Loan Approval Process: A Very Good Place to Start
Once you have identified the need to automate your loan process, a wise place to begin is at the very start of the application process. By implementing a banking software system that can manage your loan files from start to finish, your organization will yield the greatest ROI from such a platform. When evaluating the offerings from different banking software companies, it is a good idea to find a system that will integrate with your existing applications, underwriting software, credit analysis platform, and documentation. It is also important to find a system that will provide up to the minute loan status information, electronic routing, and multi-party document viewing rights. Through automated updates to the assigned user, loan status, and approval status, your bank will experience formerly unrealized economies of scale.
Optimizing Your Bank's Loan Pipeline
With the volume of loans being processed each day in a single bank branch, keeping up with the status of each paper loan file has historically been a challenge for institutions of all sizes. When implementing bank loan software to centralize such activity, it is crucial that your bank select a banking software company that offers a loan pipeline management and reporting tool. Such tools typically offer a customizable dashboard for instant analysis of a bank's existing loan pipeline. In addition, such platforms should provide a wide variety of reporting options, allowing users to subscribe to email alerts for specified pipeline activity. Also, reports should have the ability to be easily exported to the standard formats, such as.pdf and.csv, allowing deeper analysis by management.
Customize Loan Files for Your Bank Workflow Needs
Perhaps the greatest benefit of automating loan files via bank management software, is the ability to quickly glance at the entire documentation workflow and instantly understand which documents are still missing. As documents are routed from user to user through your bank workflow, users can be automatically notified via email that their action is required. When choosing a banking document management system to streamline your loan filing, it is vital that you go with a vendor that allows you set up unlimited workflow actions in your system. By customizing every workflow action to your bank's needs, you can ensure that your system will reflect the operational goals of your institution. Such elements to consider in your workflow automation include: managing exceptions, defining user groups, email notification recipients, setting lending limits, etc.
Closing Thoughts - Loan File Digitization
By automating the approval and life cycle of a loan file, your bank can reap significant benefits. Studies have shown that many financial institutions are able to recoup their investment in loan portfolio management software within a twelve to eighteen period. By digitally capturing every action associated with a loan file, banks have been known to save money in the areas of administrative costs, courier / overnight shipping expenses, storage space, and overall productivity.
Alan Wooldridge has been serving the banking industry for two decades as Co-President of AccuSystems ( http://www.accusystem.com ). AccuSystems provides bank imaging software that simplifies bank document management. With over 250 community banks throughout the United States using the AccuSystems bank management software, AccuSystems continues to be the trusted name in bank document imaging. AccuSystems' bank loan software is marketed under the AccuAccount brand; AccuSystems' software for bank operations management (banking human resources, accounts payable, etc) is marketed as AccuDoc. AccuSystems also offers banking software solutions for deposit tracking, exception tracking, and managing bank workflow. AccuSystems' Tickler Tracking System automates the management of tickler files, which are traditionally very labor intensive. Alan Wooldridge and the AccuSystems team is glad to answer any questions you may have about bank imaging and related technologies. Feel free to call with any questions: 800-950-2550.
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