By : 
Mr Credit Card
Mr Credit CardIdeal for SoFi members with good credit looking for large loans
Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
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Loan Details
| Loan Amount | $5,000 to $100,000 |
| APR | 7.99% to 23.43% (reflects 0.25% reduction in APR from autopay enrollment) |
| Maturity | 2 to 7 Years |
| Origination Fee | $0 - No Origination Fee |
Here are some other relevant details of SoFi personal loans
Allows Joint Application - SoFi allows joint application. The only condition is that the joint applicant has to have the same address as the main borrower.
No Secured Loans - SoFi does not offer secured loans
Features
Unemployment Protection
Those who have SoFi Personal Loan can apply for for Unemployment Protection if they lose their jobs provided that their loans are in good standing. Good standing means:- You must be a current SoFi member - That means you need to have a Sofi checking or banking account
- Have a Personal Loan in good standing for 9 months - That means that the Personal Loan that you have with SoFi for at least 9 months. And you must also have had no late payments throughout your loan. A late payment will disqualify you from "unemployment protection".
- Job Loss must be involuntary - You need to certify that the job loss was involuntary (ie you must not have quit your job on your own).
If you are approved for "Unemployment Protection", you will not have to pay your monthly payment for three months. You can re-apply to extend this in three month increments for up to 12 months in aggregate over the life of the loan. During this forebearance period, interest may continue to accrue. Forebearance will extend your loan maturity loan and any interest that is not paid will increase the principal balance and your monthly payment will increase when the forebearance period ends.
Your loan will also be reported as forebearance in your credit report and may impact your credit score.
SoFi will Help You Get a Job? - On their website, SoFi says that if you apply for employment protection, they will "help you find a job". What this means is that on their website, they advise you to sign up for KornFerry Advance. They also tell you that once you sign up for it, you should choose a relate career, and the website will use resume parsing technology, personalized strength assessment and set you up with a career coach.
Two APR Discounts Available
The APR of SoFi ranges between 7.99% and 23.43%. However, this rate range includes the APR reduction discounts that are available to borrowers. There are two discounts available.- 1. Set up Autopay with SoFi Checking and Savings within 20 days - The first discount is the autopay discount. You need to have a SoFi checking and savings account and also set up the autopay within 20 days of the funding of your loan. If you do this, you qualify for a 0.25% Autopay Discount
- 2. Set up Payroll Direct Deposits of 41,000 within 35 days - In addition to the Autopay Discount, you can get an additional 0.25% APR Discount. To qualify for this additional 0.25% APR reduction discount, you need to set up direct deposit with your SoFi checking and savings account of at least $1,000 with 35 days of the funding of your loan. This is in addition to setting up an autopay discount first.
To be clear, SoFi will still give you loan even if you do not want to set up autopay or direct deposit with a SoFi checking and savings account. You just would not get the APR discount. To continue to get the APR discount, you have to maintain the autopay and direct deposit with your SoFi checking and savings account throughout the Tenure of your loan.
Same Day Loan Funding
SoFi claims to disburse your funds via ACH on the same day as long as the loan documents are signed before 7pm EST. However, depending on your bank account, this may take a couple of days to clear. If you have a SoFi checking and savings account, then the funds should be available once it is disbursed. Note that though you may receive your funds relatively quickly after the loan docs are signed. According to SoFi, in 2021, 86% of a typical SoFi personal loan were signed by 7pm EST and were funded on the same day.What We Like About SoFi Loans
- Large Loan Amount - SoFi's loan range of $5,000 to $100,000 is larger than a typical online lender. It is ideal for those looking for loans in this range. It will not appeal to those looking for loans less than $5,000. According to SoFi, the average loan amount taken out by their customers is $33,000. You also have to bear in mind that if you apply for a loan that is greater than $20,000, SoFi might require more documents and approval time may be slightly longer than those taking out a smaller loan amount.
- No Origination Fee - SoFi is one of the RARE online lenders to charge no origination fee. This is in contrast to many other lenders that charge up to 10% origination fee.
- Up to 0.50% APR Discounts - You can get up to 0.5% APR discount with SoFi. As mentioned earlier, the first 0.25% discount is the autopay discount where you have to set up autopay on your loan payments with a SoFi checking and savings account within 20 days. If you want to get an additional 0.25% APR reduction, you have to sign up for a direct deposit of at least $1,000 with your SoFi checking and savings account within 35 days. 0.5% reduction is pretty significant and will result in savings on interest over the term of the loan.
- lower APR than many competitors - SoFi's APR range of between 7.99% and 23.43% is much lower than most online lenders. But that also means that you would need a good credit score to get approved. In order to get the lowest rate, you credit score and overall financial situation has to be top notch.
- Unemployment Protection - SoFi is one of the rare lenders that offer this features (see details above). For those of you who have experienced layoffs due to the Covid Pandemic, this might be a very important feature when considering which company to apply for a personal loan.
- Pre-approval with no impact on credit score - Like most online lenders, SoFi allows you to go through a pre-approval process with a soft pull without any impact on your credit score. If you are pre-approved, you will be shown offers from SoFi. And if you decide to go ahead and apply, only then will there be a hard inquiry. In fact, I would suggest that you try to get pre-approved for as many loans and pick the best offer from whichever company offers the best deal.
Things to be aware of
- SoFi does not pay creditors directly - Some lenders will payoff your creditors directly with your loan if you take out a debt consolidation loan, SoFi does not have this feature and I suspect it will not be a big deal. You simply have to pay off your creditors yourself once the funds gets into your account if the purpose of your loan was for debt consolidation.
- Need to have SoFi checking and savings account for APR Discounts - In order to get both the autopay and direct deposit discounts, you do need to have a SoFi account. For those of you who already have a SoFi account and/or already have a direct deposit set up, then it is not a big deal. But for others either opening a new bank account and/or setting up a new direct deposit may not be worth the hassle.
- Same Day Funding does not mean same day approval - Although SoFi touts same day funding as a key feature, it does not mean that approval happens in a day. More likely, it will take a few days to get approval. As mentioned earlier, for loans above $20,000, more documents may be required and approval might be longer.
Our Take: Great for those with good credit and have SoFi checking account
SoFi also offers unemployment protection should you lose your job and will allow you to miss three months of payment (though your maturity will extend for 3 months and interest will still accrue). The three month forebearance can be extended in 3 months increments up to 12 months. This feature might make SoFi attractive to some of you especially if you have faced job loses before.
To sum up, after our evaluation and review, we give the SoFi Personal Loan a 4.5 star out of 5 for it's lower rate, large loan amount, no origination fee and possibility of getting rate reduction discounts if you have a SoFi checking and savings account. If you are looking for a personal loan, you should definitely check out SoFi. Like most other online lenders, SoFi allows you to go through a pre-approval process with no impact on your credit score. Hence, you should try to get pre-approved and see what offers they come with for you. You can then compare with other lenders and pick the best for yourself.
