Since the time Upgrade Inc. came into existence, it has become popular for its unique and extremely beneficial financial products. It offers a wide range of loans, credit cards, personal credit lines, rewards checking accounts, and a lot more. It has just been a few years and the company’s financial products, especially the Upgrade Personal Loan offers are already considered some of the best among its competitors.
Let’s take a dive to look at all the upsides and downsides of Upgrade Personal Loans to see if they are as good as they promise or not.
Upsides of Upgrade Personal Loans
There are many. But some of the best features are as follows:
Eligibility Criteria:
This is surely one of the best features of Upgrade Personal Loan. They are available for anyone with fair to excellent credit scores.
It means that if your FICO score is as low as 560, you can still apply for it and get qualified.
Many other lending companies offer personal loans to people with good to excellent scores, i.e., for people with a FICO score of at least 600 and above.
So, this is where Upgrade Personal Loan stands out amongst its competitors.
Does not generally need collateral:
Upgrade generally offers unsecured personal loans. They are not asset protected. It means that the borrower does not need to put something of value in the form of collateral against the loan they borrow from the lender.
However, in some cases, when an applicant applies and Upgrade Inc. carries out a thorough background check, they may offer the option of a secured personal loan to that applicant too.
In such a case, the company would require collateral. And usually, Upgrade keeps a vehicle as this collateral, and dubs it a “secured auto loan.”
Option to add a co-borrower:
This is another amazing feature. When an applicant applies for a personal loan, Upgrade allows them to add a co-borrower. This improves the chances of their application being approved for the loan.
This co-borrower will have the authority to access the proceeds of the loan funding too.
Other companies also allow applicants to add a co-signer with them while applying for a personal loan. But this co-signer cannot access the personal loan proceeds at all.
So, this is something unique and highly beneficial that Upgrade offers its clients.
Flexible Loan Repayment Term:
The repayment term ranges from 24 to 84 months. That is quite flexible, especially considering the fact that these are usually unsecured personal loans.
Upgrade also offers a revision of the repayment terms between 2 and 7 years. So, this also adds more value and flexibility to the loan repayment structure.
Temporary debt installment reduction or change in the repayment terms:
This happens when the borrower faces a sudden hardship. For instance, if they lose their job, then the company may review the terms and conditions of the personal loan.
They may offer a temporary reduction in the debt installments, or they may offer a permanent extension in the loan repayment term.
However, there is one thing to remember here. If the repayment tenure extends and the APR remains the same, then eventually it will be the borrower who will be paying more interest by the end of their term.
Easy Application Process:
The application for a personal loan on Upgrade is very simple. It takes just a few clicks, and you are done!
Quick Loan Funding Time:
It takes a couple of days for pre-approval, but once that is done, you will be able to receive your loan funding within 1 to 4 working days.
It is beneficial for all those applicants who are low on cash and need money quickly.
Fairly easy borrowing requirements:
We have already mentioned that Upgrade Personal Loans are easily available for people with credit scores as low as 560. If their creditworthiness is fair, they have a credit history to show with at least 2 credit accounts, then that’s all that is needed for them to be eligible to apply for these loans.
Also, another plus point is that there is no minimum annual income requirement too. So, that is also not a problematic issue for most applicants in the subprime category.
Pre-qualification does not affect the credit scores:
The pre-qualification process subjects the applicant to a soft pull. This means that when an applicant submits an application for a personal loan, Upgrade Inc. then carries out a soft inquiry to verify the basic credentials of the applicant.
This soft inquiry does not affect the applicant’s credit scores at all.
However, once the process moves forward, Upgrade makes some offers to the applicant. When the applicant accepts an offer, they are then subjected to a hard pull or hard inquiry. This type of inquiry affects the credit scores of the applicant. But that is only temporary.
Credit Monitoring Tools:
Upgrade offers some unique tools and resources to borrowers for credit monitoring. This is especially important if the borrower is trying to repair their damaged credit history or rebuild a good payment history. With the help of free credit score checks and score-boosting tips, Upgrade stands out amongst its competitors for all the support and benefits that it offers to its users.
APR Discounts on Rewards Account:
This is another unique feature that Upgrade offers to its users. If you regularly check your Rewards Account on Upgrade’s website, you can become eligible to get a whopping 20% discount on the APR at which your loan has been issued/or is being issued.
Other lenders do not offer such discounts, so that is another benefit for the Upgrade users.
Conclusion:
Upgrade Personal Loans come with more benefits and have more pros than cons. There is only one downside and that is also nothing too big. The fact that anyone with even a lower credit score of 560 can apply for these loans, and considering all the benefits, our conclusion is that Upgrade Inc. is definitely a worthy choice for personal loans and all the financial solutions and products that it offers.
Jamie Johnson is a sought-after personal finance writer with bylines on prestigious personal finance sites such as Quicken Loans, Credit Karma, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Bankrate, and The Balance. Over the past five years, she’s devoted more than 10,000 hours of research and writing to topics like mortgages, loans, and small business lending.