@Vitte wrote:
To my understanding Personal Loans went out of style years ago. It is funny that some banks still advertise theme (BMO for example), but the people that could really benefit from theme usually almost never qualify.
Have you considered Lending Club? They are more open to lending non-colateral loans.
Going through the list of biggest banks at http://onlinebankingreport.com/resources/100.html and ignoring the foreign ones and non-retail/mass market ones (e.g. Bank of New York Mellon)
Chase and Bank of America don't do personal loans,
But they are done by Wells Fargo, Citibank. PNC, US Bank, SunTrust, BB&T, etc... I got tired of going down the list since everyone seemed to offer them.
Every smaller regional bank I checked offers them too (City National Bank, First Republic Bank, UnionBank, First CIty Bank, M&T Bank, etc)
So I can't really find evidence that they are out of style now. I know I get unsecured personal loan offers all the time in the mail from Wells Faro, Citibank, Discover's Personal Loan division and my credit unions (I don't currently have accounts with other banks aside from Chase and BOA) so it certainly seems to me like they are still pushing them hard. It's even more important to them now that the mortgage origination & refinance boom has slowed down.
However, I would echo what others have said as far as unsecured products like personal loans being harder to qualify for than secured products or credit cards. Certainly when you're doing well financially, that's when you want to set up yourself with credit & relationships so that when you need them, they're ready.
Also, I agree that Lending Club & Prosper are the fastest way to get a personal loan at a decent rate, though many credit unions offer lower rates, and if you have an existing relationship with the right credit unions then they may be the most likely to approve you. Without an existing relationship or a good FICO, it may be difficult to get an unsecured loan from a credit union.
