You may want cash to finance your dream vacation or the purchase of the latest “hot” gadget. You may want cash to buy necessary appliances for your home and family, to renovate your home, to pay for your kids' education, for a medical emergency, a home renovation or for any purpose under the sun.
Cash loans, or, as they are better known, personal loans, can help you meet your immediate cash requirements. In fact, cash loans or personal loans are a very popular financial product. Data published by the Bangko Sentral Ng Pilipinas has shown that consumer loan borrowings in the Philippines as on end Dec 2015 totalled 1,060.888 billion pesos!
Here, we will look at how you can easily get yourself a personal loan:
Check out online loan calculators – There are loan calculators available on the websites of several banks. You can use these to calculate your monthly repayment amount given the loan amount and repayment tenor.
Citibank's loan calculator is an example; you will need to enter the loan amount you are looking for and the tenor of repayment (6 to 60 months). The calculator will tell what your monthly installment would be.
Security Bank's loan calculator requires the loan amount sought for, the tenor of repayment and your gross monthly income. It will calculate your eligibility and return the monthly installments that you will need to repay.
Review your budget – Make a simple list of all your current cash inflows (income) and outgoings (liabilities and expenses). Check out what your surplus is. Remember, that the monthly repayments you calculated using loan calculators as described above will need to come out of this surplus. If your surplus cannot support your monthly repayment, you may need to scale down your loan expectations.
Keep tabs on eligibility requirements – Make sure that you are meeting the eligibility norms laid down by the bank that you are seeking a cash / personal loan from. Check out the following examples from a few banks:
EastWest Bank – You must be a Filipino citizen, you must be at least 21 years old and not more than 65 years upon loan maturity. Finally, your gross monthly income should be at least PhP 15,000 or your annual income should be not less than PhP 180,000.
Maybank – You should be a Filipino citizen, at least 23 years old and not more than 55 years when your loan matures. Your home or business address should be within any of the bank's service regions.
If you are employed, you should be with your current employer for at least 2 years. Your employer should be one of the top 7,000 companies in the Philippines. And, you should be at a supervisory level with a minimum basic salary of PhP 18,000.
If you are a professional or business owner, you should have been in the same profession / business for at least 5 years. Your business should show at least 2 continuous years with profitable operations with an average monthly income of PhP 200,000.
Citibank – You must be between 21-65 years of age, a Filipino resident or a local resident foreigner with a valid Philippine billing address and you must have a minimum annual income of PhP 250,000. You should also be holding a principal credit card – at least 1 year if from other banks and 6 months if it is a Citi card.
Be prepared with necessary documents – You will need to submit a number of documents essentially to establish your identity and income. Being prepared with all the required documents will lead to a faster processing of your loan application. Refer to the image below to understand what documents will be required of you:
