What's the best emergency medical loan?

You can get a personal loan from a bank, a credit union or an online lender. The key to getting a personal loan is to do your research, both on the loan providers and the terms of their offers. WalletHub makes it easy to compare personal loans and has user reviews for lenders big and small. Once you’ve decided on the right loan for you, WalletHub can bring you directly to its secure online application.… read full answer

Below, you can get to know the major players and see where most other consumers have gotten their personal loans.

Popular Personal Loan Companies:

• American Express
• Avant
• Discover
• LendingClub
• Lightstream by SunTrust Bank
• Marcus by Goldman Sachs
• Prosper
• SoFi
• Wells Fargo

Before applying for a personal loan, you may also want to check for pre-qualification. If you are pre-qualified for a personal loan, your chances of actually being approved are very high but not guaranteed. Pre-qualification uses a harmless soft inquiry while actually applying for a loan triggers a hard inquiry that may temporarily lower your credit score. You can use WalletHub’s free tool to check your pre-qualification status with multiple lenders at once.

On that note, your credit score will affect where you can get a personal loan. Big banks tend to offer loans to people with good or excellent credit. Credit unions, which have a more personal connection with their clients, are more likely to offer personal loans to applicants with lower scores. Online lenders are the newest players, and some of them offer bad credit loans as well.

Now that you know where to get a personal loan, it’s also important to take note of where NOT to get a personal loan – a payday lender. Payday loans go by many names, including payday advances, payroll loans and cash advance loans. With this type of loan, the lender lets you borrow money against your next paycheck. Since payday loans are short-term, the finance charges are incredibly high to ensure the lender makes money. Lenders usually charge a fee on the borrowed amount that is equivalent to an APR of over 300%-600% in most cases. It’s best to avoid these types of loans altogether.