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Personal Loans And APR – Is That All That Matters?
By: Joseph Kenny
The advice from financial advisers has always been, if you are thinking about
taking on new loan or any type of credit agreement, shop around. These days,
there is such intense competition among lenders to get your business, that
special offers and extremely low interest rate loans are always on the market
somewhere, if you are willing to search them out. It is also worth checking out
less well known lenders and not just the high street banks, as some of the best
deals around will be from these lenders.
The government has sought to facilitate this by providing a standard benchmark
figure that can be used to price loans from different lenders. This figure is
the APR, or annual percentage rate for interest on the loan. It is calculated in
the same way by all lenders and should give you an accurate and fair view of the
real cost of any credit you take on. So for instance, if a credit card is
tempted to tell you that they only charge two per cent interest, they will have
to tell you that this is their monthly rate, and the APR is in fact, something
more like twenty eight per cent.
However, the APR is not the only thing that you will have to check out when you
are shopping around for credit. There are many other very important factors that
will also effect which credit offers are the best deals. For example, as well as
interest, it is possible that a loan will include other fees that do not go into
calculating the APR. Some loans, especially mortgages, incorporate arrangement
fees or set up fees that you will also have to take into account. Many other
loans will have early termination charges that are added to the bill if you wish
to repay the loan early.
Flexibility is also a consideration and you may want to check if over payments,
or repayment holidays are permitted on your loan. This means that you can put a
little extra against the loan when you come into extra money, or take a break
from payments if you lose your job for example. This is very important in long
term loans such as mortgages.
Some credit cards will also offer you low APRs but then charge very high
penalties if you miss a payment. Others will offer you low APRs but only for an
introductory period, after which the APR jumps to a higher level. You should be
aware of these types of offers. Even zero per cent balance transfers can be
subject to a balance transfer fee, that in effect means you are paying for the
balance transfer, and it makes little difference to you whether it is as
interest or as a fee.
About the Author:
Joseph Kenny writes for the loan site www.ukpersonalloanstore.co.uk which
also has many cheap loans available for application now.
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