What You Need to Know About Online Direct Lenders

You have plans to set aside money in savings, but then life happens. One week, your dog finds your stash of chocolate and needs to be rushed to the vet. The next, your child falls out of their treehouse and needs to get an x-ray. On top of it all, your tire blows, and you need to fix it if you expect to get to work on time.

In times like these, instead of filling up your emergency fund, you end up draining it.

How will you cover these unexpected emergency expenses? If you don’t have savings, an online direct lender may be able to help.

What Are Online Direct Lenders?

An online direct lender is a financial institution that offers installment loans online.Rather than heading out to your nearest bank branch to request funds, you can open up your laptop and ask over the Internet.

They get the “direct” portion of their name because they don’t partner with any other financial institutions, brokers, or third parties to fund your loan. Instead, you deal directly with this single lender at every step of the way.

Installment loans direct lenders are not a loan matching service. Loan matching services are third-party services that facilitate a loan on your behalf. These services accept your application, then shop your request to other financial institutions to see which ones will finance your loan.

By cutting out the middlemen, direct lenders reduce how often your personal information gets shuffled around. Take MoneyKey as an example. If you apply with MoneyKey in any state they’re active in other than Texas, you only share this data with them, not potentially dozens of lenders in a broker’s network. This makes it easier to keep things straight if you apply for online installment loans from MoneyKey.

What Do Online Direct Lenders Do?

An online direct lender will accept your application and review your information to determine if you qualify. If you’re approved, your direct lender will underwrite and fund your installment loan.

As the only financial institution involved with your installment loan, they’ll also schedule and accept your payments.

How Can You Find a Reliable Direct Lender?

Any Internet search will bring up millions of results in a handful of seconds, and your search for a lender is no different. Naturally, you can’t apply with them all. You’ll have to narrow them down—not just to save you the mental frustration of filling out countless applications, but also to find a legitimate lender that prioritizes responsible lending.

If you need help covering an unexpected emergency expense, keep an eye out for the following features:

• A License. This certification ensures your lender abides by the lending laws in your state.
• Transparent and Fair Fees. The rates, terms, and conditions of your online installment must be easy to understand. Without transparency, you run the risk of missing hidden fees and other predatory practices. Pay attention to the fine print to ensure it’s something you can afford.
• Privacy Policies. You’ll be sharing a lot of information over the web, so you need to make sure your financial institution respects your privacy.

If you’ve run into some bad luck while your savings are non-existent, installment loans direct lenders may be a way you get back on your feet. Just remember to check that they have what it takes to offer a reliable loan.