Understanding personal loans

A personal loan is often referred to as an unsecured loan. They are one and the same and simply refer to a loan that is not secured against any property (home or car), but against an individual’s personal credit rating. Your credit rating is verified by a credit check to determine your credit rating.

Ordinarily, yes – that’s why it is important to do a proper investigation using the uSwitch personal loans comparison service.

Applying for one loan rather than many is a big advantage.

But before you get to that stage, you will give us some details about yourself and your circumstances and we will use this information to make an accurate comparison of personal loans. Then we only offer you those personal loans for which you’re likely to be accepted.

There are only three other factors to take into account when looking for the right personal loan:

• what is the APR, or Annual Percentage Rate? This determines how much interest you pay
• are there any early repayment penalties? If there are, you could be penalised for paying off your personal loan early.
• will you need to take out Payment Protection Insurance (PPI)? This covers your payment instalments should you fall ill or be out of work.

But don’t worry. Our loans comparison service makes it easy to weigh up all these factors when choosing a personal loan.