A few decades back, if you’d ask someone if the education loan industry would change in a major way, you’d get a lot of resounding no’s. For years, the education loan market was thought to be immune to structural changes, as a result of it’s niche focus. But rapid digitalization has helped create a new and exciting space for online education loans recently.

Online education loans were already a novel and game-changing introduction to the online lending space. However, ever since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the pace at which this space had been growing has accelerated rapidly. In an effort to avoid possible infection, many borrowers who relied on traditional lending are turning to online options because of their convenience. Online education loans have truly opened up doors of opportunity for a huge chunk of the tech savvy, 37 million strong Indian student population which enrolls in college each year. 

A Better Way to Borrow

In recent years, online education loans have challenged and changed the education loan market in extremely positive ways. Previously, banks and NBFCs had pretty inflexible guidelines that worked against students who required certain types of loans. Not only did this hurt business, but it also impacted most student’s ability to attain favorable study outcomes. 

Another couple of things that’ve changed for the better thanks to online education loans are processing time and paperwork involved. Traditional education loans are much slower to process. Why, you ask? Because there’s so much paper to push! Online alternatives have digitized the process to the maximum extent possible, and help improve efficiency of education loans. Therefore, online loans could be a really good option if you’re looking to find a loan quick and easy during an emergency.

Given the advantages already highlighted, you might find an online education loan tempting already. But apart from the obvious technological benefits, such loans also usher in powerful benefits and innovations that make borrowing a much more customer friendly exercise. These include:

Loan Bidding

Traditionally, getting an education loan has been all about visiting multiple banks to compare offers. But did you ever imagine you could get all lenders to run after you instead? With education loan bidding, you can do exactly that.

Loan bidding is a powerful way to get banks to bring out their best possible education loan offers on the table. The concept is quite simple and eerily similar to an IPL player auction.But the difference here is that you’re the player, while lenders are franchise teams. 

Here’s how it works: you approach multiple lenders at once, with your profile. Then, based on your profile, those lenders send their loan bids and over a period of time, compete amongst themselves to finance your education. As a result, you end up getting the best of what every bank has to offer!

Wanna learn more about how you can make the most of loan bidding? Check out this platform!

Collective Buying Power

Collective buying power is powerful, and for online education loans, it works wonderfully alongside loan bidding. Unlike traditional education loans, where you’d have to approach multiple banks alone, to get their offers, the online option also offers you ways to negotiate with banks in groups. 

How does this help? Consider this: Banks interview loan seekers individually and offer them terms based on strict criteria, sometimes ignoring potential. This way, they largely dictate terms and get away with extracting more than they should from you. 

Now with online loans, you and other students (who could be attending the same school as you) have the option to approach lenders collectively and demand better terms.  This way, your collective gains ‘buying power’ over the bank. This is because if the bank refuses, it risks losing a lot of business and its reputation.

Exclusive Offers

When banks compete, they give it their best shot. And when it comes to online education loans, banks often attempt to bring in more customers with exclusive deals and offers. These can include deals such as lower interest rates, processing fee discounts, and other similar discounts.

In the years to come, college enrollment in India is expected to boom and with it, so is the education loan market. What’s more, some banks have already begun to offer deals like 6.9% interest rate and 0% processing fees to students interested in taking education loans. Check out which ones. 

Safety 

Perhaps the biggest advantage of getting your education loan online in such times, online loans are the SAFEST way to borrow, because of the minimal contact involved.

Apart from the reduction in contact, approximately, 95% of all paperwork is eliminated when you choose to get a loan online. As a result, the risk of infection from contact decreases significantly.