Alliant CU discontinuing Share Secure loans

[Anonymous]

I just spoke with an Alliant loan officer at 5 pm today.  Starting January 2, no more applications for the Share Secure loans will be processed.  That product is being discontinued.   Thus Alliant will no longer be an option for people interested in the Share Secure Loan Technique.

If anyone wishes to apply for the Alliant SS loan, they need to apply for the loan by 2 pm Eastern Time Fri Dec 29.  Applying later than that (e.g. 4 pm) does not mean they won't be approved, but the earlier the better.

If a person wants the loan but does not yet have an Alliant membership, options are limited, since you need to get approved for membership with the money in the savings account BEFORE you apply for the loan.   Such a person would need to apply for membership Thurs (ideally in the morning) and then would need to be prepared to do one of the following two things to get that money into the account and available:

(1)  Make a wire transfer of the $510.  (This is different from the much cheaper and slower method of an ACH transfer.)

(2)  Get a friend or family member whom you know is a member of Alliant already to transfer the $510 from that person's account to yours (presumably with you doing an ACH transfer to his account).

Although everything regarding SS loans appears to have been removed on Alliant's website, it is still there once you log on as a member.

I will be deleting the Step-By-Step Guidance that was designed specifically with Alliant in mind.  (This is the third post in the Share Secure Loan thread referenced above.)  In the next few weeks it would be great to see if we can get a list of CUs and banks that are good alternatives to Alliant, and if we are lucky some enterprising members of the community may create appropriately detailed guidances for those institutions.

In the next post I will create a recap of the features that were good about Alliant -- stuff we should look for in another bank or CU.

[Anonymous]

Features we liked about Alliant:

(1)  Alliant enabled loan terms of up to 60 months.  The longer the loan term the better, since as soon as it closes you lose the FICO scoring benefit. 

(2)  Alliant permitted "pre-payment" of the loan.  This means that you could pay off almost the entire balance of the loan at month 1 and still keep the loan open for the full term of the loan.

(3)  Allliant permitted a pretty small initial loan size ($500) and returned almost all of it in the first few weeks once you paid the loan down.  Some lenders require larger initial amounts or are less compliant about unlocking your money after paydown.

(4)  Alliant did not do a hard pull -- whether for joining the CU or for applying for the loan.  Some CUs have done a hard pull for one or the other or both.

(5)  Alliant could be joined by pretty much anybody.  This was in contrast to Navy Fed (for example) where a person needed family in the military -- or other CUs that had even more restrictive entrance requirements.

Bullets 1 and 2 above are essential to the SS Loan Technique working at all.  Bullets 3-5 are really nice to have, but depending on a person's situation may not be essential.

[Ardecko]

Do we have a list of banks that are potentials or that have already been crossed off?

I was looking at Regions bank's site, and they have a candidate: https://www.regions.com/personal-banking/personal-loans/deposit-secured-loan
They say they serve 15 states. I assume that means they have branches there, no idea if they will let you in if you're not in one of those 15.

Also, in their PDF guide to this product: • All loans are subject to credit approval. In most cases, a credit decision is made within one business
day. If additional documentation or information, such as income verification, is required from the
customer, the credit decision and/or loan closing may be delayed.

Likely this means they will pull credit. Worth a ring?

[Anonymous]

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@Ardecko wrote:
Do we have a list of banks that are potentials or that have already been crossed off?

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We do not have a list.  Anybody who wants to start one that would be wonderful.  I'd be delighted if you could find out something about Regions.  The five criteria are the things we need to know about.

[Anonymous]

I just played online for a couple minutes, googled Good Credit Unions and then grabbed one at random and looked at what personal loans it offered.  I found this:

https://www.americafirst.com/loans/personal-loans/share-secured-loans.html

I haven't looked into it, but it shows how easy it is to locate possibilities.  I liked it that it offered 10-year loan terms.

I believe the SS loan at Navy Fed has worked well for some people.

[arkane]

I found an old thread here from 2.5 years ago regarding SSLs. Info might be a bit out of date but could be a useful starting point?

I'm going to quote some parts of the OP in that thread, my annotations of some of the more promising CUs to look into are in RED

@jesseh wrote:

Hi there,

As I was advised by several myfico forums members (here) to get a share secured savings loan at a credit union, I'm starting to make a comparison. figured might as well share it. I tried to include most cu's that are frequently discussed on this forum.

Many cu's offer these type of loans, but don't advertise them on the website. So if you are a member at a different cu, give your local cu a call to inquire what they offer.

Anyway, today this infomation is useful, I probably won't maintain this list well though

Then, some cu's may do a hard pull upon joining, alliant, state dept and andrews fcu don't (I think). there are other comparison posts on this. (usually on secured credit cards)

Notes:

• Apply by phone. if you apply online, the system may do an unnecessary inquiry automatically.
• Call the loan team/lending solutions dept during office hours, otherwise you may be transferred to an external party, they usually have less reliable info.
• Recommendation: Use the loan calculator recommended by themanwhocan 

Alliant FCU

webpage

Amount: $500-500.000

Terms: 6-60 months

APR: 2.90%

INQ: no pull

PenFed FCU
no webpage (call) see this post

Amount: $250-no max

Terms: up to 142 months, minimum monthly payment of $25

APR: 2.00% + savings rate (0.05%)

Digital FCU

webpage

Amount: $200-

Terms: up to 10 years (120 months)

APR: 3.50%

For $1000 or less, the minimum monthly payment is $30 (ref: phonecall 6/17/15)

note: savings account has high yield on first $500

State Dept FCU (anyone can join as long as they join the American Consumer Council)

webpage

Terms: 6 months - 12yrs

APR: 3.10%

Amount: min. $500
(confirmed by phone by Monique 06/17/15, minimum is $500 and can be spread over 5years, no penalty for early termination)

(other user could spread $500 over only 36 months) 

Andrews FCU

no webpage (call) appllying online is possible

Terms: 12-144months (depending on dollar amount)

Amount: $500 (min is $1000 now)-100.000

APR: 3.00% + savings rate

INQ: no pull

First Tech FCU

webpage

Amount: $500-500.000

Terms: up to 60/96 months

APR: 3.00% + savings rate

Patelco CU

webpage

Terms: up to 10yrs

APR: 5.00/5.10%

San Diego County FCU

APR: 5.00%

Coastal FCU

see other (post indicates potential soft pull for SSL)

APR: 2.1%

Amount: $480 over 24 months is possible

Golden 1 FCU

webpage

Amount: $500-

APR: 4.99%

Affinity FCU

APR 2.75% + divident rate OR 2.00% + certificate rate

NASA FCU

savings secured loan rate is 3.1% (3% + the 0.1% interest rate of the savings account).

Minimum Shared Secure Loan is $500, Minimum monthly payment is $25.

Terms up to 60 months.

I am excluding most cu's that can't be joined by anybody
(i.e. regional or military requirements)

psecu, navy fcu, cath fcu, etc.

Quick calculation (by a sdfcu loan officer)

$1000 over 3yrs at 3.1 % = $29.13 per month = $1048.68

If anyone has any suggestions or further info, please reply

have a good one!

Sincerely

Obvious disclaimer: I can't guarantee anything. that is the terms, approval, or the apr given here. the apr's are from either the website or by calling member services on the date of this post.

[Anonymous]

Woo hoo!  This is immensely helpful. 

As you say it's just a place to start with and what would help is if other folks can jump in and verify that the info in that much older thread is still accurate.  As you can see, a week ago Alliant would have been on this list, so lenders can change what they offer.

I will say that the one factor that does not matter that's listed is APR.  The big idea of the SSL technique is to pay almost all of the principal off at month 1.  Thus whether you get charged 2.5% or 5% it shouldn't matter, unless it's imprtant whether you pay 1 dollar a year or 2 in interest.  What does matter is the five factors I mentioned in the second post of this thread -- especially the first two.

Many thanks to you Arkane and to Jesseh.  Let's continue to track this.

[Anonymous]

New apps will no longer be accepted, but are those already with an SSL safe? At least for now...?

[Anonymous]

Hi Sapphire.  Yeah in situations like this, lenders may discontinue accepting further applications, but it would be very strange to close existing loans (especially since they'd lose the balance on them).  On the other hand, the closer one gets to Fri evening, the more likely that they will find a way to turn down a loan app made at the last minute.

The loan officer I spoke with said that there would be a loan officer there even on Sat morning to work on any last SSL applications.  So I can't imagine that there's a problem with any existing loans.

[Ardecko]

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@Anonymous wrote:

New apps will no longer be accepted, but are those already with an SSL safe? At least for now...?

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No reason to think they would be affected, but we'll have to wait and see.