Create your loan request
This is the form for creating your Loan Request. It comes in two flavours - the Bidding market Loan Request for those borrowers with a Borrower Membership and the Matching market Loan Request for those borrowers with an Advanced Borrower Membership. The two are not all that different, there are some entries which are not required for the Matching market Loan Request because it is not seen by lenders.
The Create Loan Request entry form for the Bidding market looks like this:
The Create Loan Request entry form for the Matching market looks like this:
The Matching market Loan Request is identical to the Bidding market Loan Request except that it does not have the following three entries: LISTING LENGTH, LOAN REQUEST PHOTO and LOAN REQUEST VIDEO because those fields are not relevant in the Matching market.
We will use the Bidding market Loan Request form for this tutorial.
The Create Loan Request form offers tooltips throughout. Moving the cursor to the various areas of the screen will reveal relevant tooltips providing explanations of the entry boxes, drop down selections and numbers presented as shown below:
First you enter the Amount of the loan required. In response you will see the Loan Flat Fee, the Loan Percent Fee and a guideline Compensation Fund Contribution based on our average credit rating. This actual figures may be different for a real loan situation because in that case we take into consideration your actual credit rating. You will also see, on the basis of the charges set out above, what amount will be disbursed to you (Total Amount You Receive) after those fees and contributions.
You then select, from the two dropdowns, the highest interest rate (Your Target Rate), with one decimal place, that you would be prepared to pay for the loan. Bear in mind that the higher the Target Rate the more appealing to Lenders your Loan Request will become. You will then see the Monthly Repayment that will be required and the Total Amount Repayable with interest.
However those figures will be for a loan of the minimum term or duration. You next select your chosen Loan Term in months from the dropdown selection, or put another way, the period over which you wish to repay the loan. Then the Monthly Repayment that will be required and the Total Amount Repayable with interest will adjust to the correct figure for the actual term of your choice.
Listing Length is the number of days that you wish the Loan Request, in the Bidding market only, to show and be available for funding. We allow a borrower to accept (or decline) a fully funded loan before the expiry of the duration of the Listing Length. This parameter is not shown in the Matching market Loan Request, as it is not relevant.
The Loan Purpose is then selected from the drop down.
Having completed the above you will then see something like this:
Next compose a Loan Request Title which is brief, unique and relevant to summarise your Loan Request in under 100 characters, character counter supplied!
Next please enter a Personal Profile in under 3000 characters, summarising your current financial situation. There are prompts in this section to assist making the entries. Explain why you need the loan and what it will be used for (more detail than the purpose above). Then describe why you might have existing loans and what they are used for. Don't duplicate the detail of existing loans mentioned below. Set out why lenders should lend you their money. They will want to know about your credit record, debt repayment history, how you handle money generally, your eBay score, etc. Finally, summarise your financial circumstances.
You can now upload a relevant Loan Request Photo. This may be of you or something relevant to your loan. For example, if the loan is for a car you might upload a picture of the car you intend to purchase. This parameter is not shown in the Matching market Loan Request, as it is not relevant.
You can also upload a relevant Loan Request Video. This may be of you making your pitch for your loan or of something relevant to your loan. For example, if the loan is for fitting out a shop you might upload a video of the shop that you are intending to fit out and/or images showing after the fit-out. Valid video formats are: AVI, SWF, WMV, MPG, MP4, MOV, M4V, FLV, 3GP and in size, not more than 10MB. This parameter is not shown in the Matching market Loan Request, as it is not relevant.
Having entered the above, this section might look like this:
The next part of the Create Loan Request form is the Affordability Calculator section. This is where you enter details of Existing Loans and then your Monthly Income and Expenses. This section looks like this:
The first part of the Affordability Calculator is for entering any existing loans details.
Select the Loan Type from the dropdown. Then enter the Provider of the loan, the bank, loan company, credit card provider, etc. Next enter the Interest Rate of that existing loan. Next is to enter the current Amount Owed or outstanding on the loan. Then enter the Monthly Payment followed by the number of Months To Pay of repayments currently outstanding. Finally, check this box if the intention is to Repay this existing loan out of the proceeds of the requested new loan from our lenders.
The small minus '-' and plus '+' on the left hand side beneath the area for existing loans, allows the removal of an incorrect existing loan line or the addition of another existing loan.
When two existing loans have been added it might look like this:
Next in the Affordability Calculator is the section for entering Monthly Income and Monthly Expenses.
In this section you must click the left facing arrowheads to "open" the section. The arrowheads, showing for the total boxes, turn downward pointing when the section is opened. You can only enter the details (no arrowheads beside the entry boxes), and you cannot enter any of the totals (arrowheads beside the boxes) as the totals automatically calculate from the detail entries. See screenshot below:
Enter as much detail and be as accurate as possible. In addition to the section sub-totals the Monthly Income and Monthly Expenses section also calculates the Available Income (sometimes called the Disposable Income).
When this section is completed it might look like this:
In addition to calculating the sub-totals and the Available Income it also calculates two well known debt ratios - the Loan Payment to Available Income Ratio and the Debt to Income Ratio (sometimes called the DTI Ratio). This site has limits of affordability set on each of these ratios. The Loan Payment to Available Income Ratio has a maximum of 40% and the DTI a maximum of 36%. If either of these ratios limits is breached the section will show "Test Failed" instead of "Test Passed" and the Loan Request cannot be submitted for approval. The borrower will need to request a longer loan term or a reduced loan amount to get a "Test Failed" back to a "Test Passed".
This section shows as follows:
Having changed any of the details entered the "Save Changes" button should be clicked to recalculate the loan proposition as follows:
When your Create Loan Request form is as you require it, click on the link for the Terms and Conditions for Loan Requests. When you have read these Ts & Cs and you are happy with them, then check the checkbox to confirm that you have read and agree with those Ts & Cs. Then click the "Create Loan Request" button as shown here:
You will see a message while your Loan Request is being processed requesting that you do not navigate away from the page as follows:
Finally you will be routed to the logged in home page and you will see the following message at the top of the page:
The Loan Request will pass through the dual approval process then be credit referenced and finally pass through the credit risk decision process before being published into the relevant loan market.
You can edit a Bidding market Loan Request when logged in:
1. Main menu item Lending > View Loan Requests and selecting your loan by clicking EDIT LOAN REQUEST showing just beneath the loan request title, or
2. Borrower Menu > My Borrowing Account > My Active Loan Requests > Open the Loan Request for editing by clicking on the Loan Request where it shows EDIT LOAN REQUEST
The Loan Request editing page is like this:
You may only edit as follows:
- the text in the Personal Profile section;
- income Expenses, the detail numbers only, but not the overall totals for income and expenses;
- upload a new photo;
- upload a new video.
You may "Modify" a Loan Request according to the following rules:
- Once only, and
- When it is "expired" (the duration of its listing has finished), and
- It has achieved at least 80% funding, and
- You may only extend its listing by up to 4 days.
You may then modify the loan request in minor ways and re-list it in the hope that you can reach full funding.
You may edit it as follows:
- the text in the Personal Profile section;
- Income and Expenses, the detail numbers only, but not the overall totals for income and expenses;
- upload a new photo;
- upload a new video.
If your loan request is less than 80% funded it has really expired without a result. Perhaps you can try another loan request at a higher target rate to attract more lenders.