There are banks that either score on the interest rate, or bouquet of offers, or branch network & so on. Only a few of these lenders target customer satisfaction as their USP. One such lender is ICICI Bank that scores high on product diversity and customer experience. With a wide choice of product range, supported by seamless iMobile App and competitive interest rate offers, and outstanding customer service, ICICI Bank is one of the Go-To banks for your planned and unplanned cash needs. The application is processed and disbursed swiftly with minimum hassles.
Let’s review ICICI Personal Loan and find out all ins and outs of the digital Personal Loan application process.
ICICI Personal Loan: Features & Types
ICICI Personal Loans up to Rs 25 Lakh are available as unsecured, all-purpose loans. You can apply online or offline as per your convenience. To further ease the customer’s borrowing journey the bank has sub-categorized Personal Loans as Wedding Loan, Holiday Loan, Home Renovation, Top Up Loan, and Fresher Funding. While wedding, holiday, and home renovation are clearly utility-wise categorization of Personal Loan, Top UP and Fresher Funding are two special features.
When you are an existing ICICI Bank’s Personal Loan Customer, you can apply for a Top-Up Loan. It lets you meet your additional financial obligations when you are already serving an ICICI Loan. The USP is an affordable rate of interest and ease of application approval. You get the choice to avail of Top Up to existing Personal Loan or to apply for a separate loan. The eligibility however depends on your past success of loan repayment.
Another special offering is Fresher Funding Personal Loan from ICICI Bank. Imagine a young professional, who has just received her first salary is eligible to get a Personal Loan from ICICI Bank. ICICI Fresher Funding Loan makes young professionals earning a minimum of Rs 30000 salary eligible for instant Personal Loans up to Rs. 1,50,000. This certainly is an innovative and customer-friendly product.
Interest Rates
ICICI is one of the top banks in India and undoubtedly interest rates are competitive and set as per market standards. Presently ICICI Personal Loan Interest rates vary between 10.50% to 19.50% p.a. It is worthwhile to know here that the average lending rate for July to September 2020 was 12.45% p.a, where the minimum offer was 9.25% and the maximum rate was 19%. Thus you can go ahead and opt for ICICI Personal Loan for a low rate offer.
Some of the factors that impact effective interest rate include loan tenure, loan amount, income, location, CIBIL score and your past relationship with the Bank.
Eligibility
To lock the best offer, you must fulfill eligibility criteria.
The age of the applicant should be between 23 to 58 years. The minimum salary should be Rs 30,000 where the debt to income ratio should be less than 50% and the credit score should be as per the bank’s credit policy.
Should you apply for ICICI Personal Loan?
Learning about ICICI Personal Loan, you surely would have made your mind about the suitability of this product for your needs. Yet, before signing the dotted lines, follow this checklist:
- Do not borrow to exhaust available limit
You should only borrow as much as you need. Never agree to avail of loan to utilise the available credit limit. Carefully assess your credit requirement and borrow as per your repayment capacity and needs. - Evaluate EMI to NMI ratio
Every time you repay your loan EMI in time, your credit score builds up. Thus it is very important to borrow at EMIs that are affordable for entire loan tenure. When you already have multiple loans, it is important to consider overall EMI to NMI ratio to correctly understand the burden of repayments. - Do not borrow for max tenure
Longer Tenure results in low EMIs. But it also adds to your overall interest outgo. So, you should not borrow at max tenure available. Opt for shortest possible tenure for your repayment capacity. - Prepayment can be costly
Prepayment of Personal Loans attract a-foreclosure charge. So it is always recommended to evaluate the impact of loan schedule before signing the agreement. You should try to serve the Personal Loan as per the given schedule and build your score. - Make an informed decision
As there are several options available in the marketplace, it is always recommended to use professional advice to choose the best Personal Loan offer. You should compare your chosen lender with other bank offers and opt for the most affordable one.