The 2019 ISA season is now in full swing, and it's as good a time as any to focus on financial planning - and, within that, looking ahead to your retirement years to ensure financial security.
Lending Works partners with Revolut to deliver instant credit
Lending Works has today announced a new partnership with challenger bank Revolut to provide instant credit at half the cost of UK banks. In a matter of minutes, Revolut customers can now apply for credit from anywhere in the world via their smartphone and receive funds instantly to their account.
Revolut’s credit feature taps into Lending Works’ sophisticated and efficient P2P platform, which matches individual lenders with those looking to borrow money. Because the process cuts out intermediaries such as banks entirely, customers are thus charged just £52 on average to borrow £1,000 over a 12-month period, with a representative APR of 9.9%. In contrast, a recent survey of five major UK banks, whose personal loans are notoriously expensive with time-consuming application processes, showed that consumers are charged £120 on average to borrow the same amount over a 12-month period, yielding a representative APR of 23.8%*. Credit card rates are also sky-high, reaching a record average purchasing rate of 21.6 per cent APR in March 2016 (Source: This is Money).
Representative example: Borrow £1,000 over 12 months at 9.9% APR representative. Monthly repayments of £87.68 and total amount payable of £1,052.15. Interest rate of 4.5% p.a. (fixed) and total fees of £27.50. The rate you are offered may differ from the Representative APR shown and will be based on your personal circumstances, loan amount and repayment term.
The new credit features make this a first with regard to instant approval and payout of P2P loans. The customer journey makes use of smart-tech so that applicants are simply asked to state the amount of money they require, their monthly income and residential status. Data on the customer is then fed into the credit decision model to increase the chance of thin-file customers being accepted at the best rate. Customers can then see the total cost of their loan and how much they will pay back on a monthly basis. As soon as the terms in the app are accepted, the customer can use their Revolut card to spend their credit anywhere in the world, with the real exchange rate and no transaction fees. The entire process takes as little as three minutes.
UK users are currently offered credit from as little as £500 to a maximum of £5,000 via this arrangement, and can adjust their repayment period between 12 and 60 months. As with all Lending Works loans, there are no fees to repay the loan early either.
Nick Harding, Founder and CEO, Lending Works:
“We are delighted to be partnering with Revolut in this venture, which breaks new ground within personal finance. We identify strongly with Revolut’s commitment to making financial services fairer and more efficient for consumers, and the fact that they have chosen our platform to deliver instant credit represents a gratifying seal of approval of the innovative technologies we use.”
Nikolay Storonsky, Founder and CEO, Revolut:
“The fact that anyone can now apply for credit from anywhere in the world in two minutes, get the money instantly and spend it with a Revolut card without fees in any currency is mind-blowing. The same process to apply for a loan or credit card with my bank would take a week and cost me double.”
*Survey of five UK banks (Natwest, Lloyds, HSBC, RBS and Santander) carried out on 16th February 2017 using their respective representative APRs.
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