I scheduled an appointment at my bank last week to inquire about a loan. I had seen on their website that there was an online application process, but I thought my situation might be a little unusual (a loan for my wife to do a short study abroad program in the US next year), so I wanted to talk to someone in person. I have PR, I’ve been a customer with the bank for over 15 years and never missed a credit card payment or anything like that, and after explaining the situation, the lady at the bank assured me that I could use the loan for that purpose; however, I would need to apply online, as I had seen before (it seems that another company handles the screening process).
Long story short, I was immediately rejected at the first screening stage, and of course they don’t tell you why. The application asks obvious questions like how much you want to borrow, when you want to start repaying, and how long you want to take to repay the loan. It also asks about your individual income, but not your combined family income. And then it asks questions such as how long have you been with your company, how many employees it has, and how long you’ve been in your current residence, which seem a little … irrelevant … to me.
I initially asked to repay the loan in 2 years. Then I re-applied and asked for 5 years, and that was rejected as well. I’ve just reapplied again asking for 10 years, but I’m expecting a similar response. At 10 years, I’d only be paying ¥2,000 a month, so it’s not like they can say I can’t afford it. So what are the other possible reasons for the rejection? I work for a small company but I’ve been there 4 years this month…is that a factor? My income is pretty average, I’d say. Do they they see a gaijin name and automatically reject it? They didn’t even ask if I have PR.
Just curious if anyone else has dealt with something similar, and if so, did you manage to find a solution? It’s pretty frustrating.
4 comments
Do you own your house? What is your income? Are you a full time permanent employee (正社員)? What are your current debt obligations? Those are the key questions they will be looking at.
I honestly don’t know anyone who’s gotten a personal loan in Japan.
I have taken out small educational loans to cover the kid’s tuition for college until I could pay it back but the period for those has only been a few months (since paying 2-3m jpy in one chunk was doable but unpleasant immediatly after buying a house). And the time we did that we didn’t have any issues/problems.
As for a personal loan for education – did they even ask what it was for? Maybe see if there’s an educational loan/government grant she could qualify for?
If it’s online and immediate, then it’s likely an algorithm that’s rejecting you. Even if it is a person, Japan is notorious for sticking by arbitrary rules, so it’s highly unlikely someone is making unquantified judgements. I would go back to the lady you initially spoke to and ask her advice – maybe they can’t tell you specifically why your application is being rejected, but she should be able to share the criteria.
With loans there are minimum income requirement and minimum amount of money. For your type of loan a credit card loan would be appropriate. 2000 yen a month x 10 years is 240,000