WalletHub, Financial Company
@WalletHub
LightStream does a hard credit inquiry into your credit report when you apply for LightStream personal loan. LightStream does this in order to get a full look at the prospective borrower’s credit history and make an approval decision. A hard credit check does have a temporarily negative effect on the applicant’s credit score. However, the score typically drops just 5 - 10 points. So it’s easy to bounce back in a few months – especially for people who get approved for a loan and start making timely payments.
It’s not unusual that LightStream does a hard pull. Most personal loan providers will use a hard pull during their approval process. The exceptions are some extremely expensive bad-credit lenders, such as payday lenders or auto title lenders.
Some lenders will do a soft credit check, which doesn’t hurt your credit score, as part of a “pre-qualification” process. But LightStream does not offer pre-qualification. And even people who are pre-qualified for other loans still need to apply and go through a hard pull before they can get the loan.
LightStream reportedly requires a credit score of 660 or higher for approval. So if you don’t want to waste a hard pull on a long shot, check your credit score for free and make sure it’s at least 660 before applying.
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