Borrow to paycheck: how the geek took a microloan, and what came of it (spoiler: everything is ok)
In the past few years, probably every Internet user has come across heartbreaking stories about how certain clients of microfinance organizations drive themselves into a debt hole, gaining loans at high interest rates, which they can’t get back. As a result, the image of such companies was very definite, and I’m sure that the majority of Geektimes users never intend to contact them.
Among them was me, however, not so long ago, “life made its own adjustments” and I still had to look for the opportunity to intercept tens or two thousand rubles to my salary. For various reasons (see below) I decided to try to get a microloan. However, this matter should have been approached thoroughly, so it was decided to take a geeky approach and analyze the options.
Why and why
The situation of a shortage of a relatively large amount of money (for simplicity we assume that the amount is over 10k rubles) arose in a completely banal way - during the repair of the apartment it turned out that it would not be possible to meet the indicated budget. Unfortunately, I do not understand this, so I trust the hired craftsmen and suppliers of materials that they recommend, and there is simply no time to look for some cheaper options for acquiring materials.
So, some materials turned out to be more expensive than planned, and it was urgently needed to find somewhere a little more than ten thousand rubles to cover the “cash gap” that had arisen in this way.
And then it turned out that the new tile will cost more than expected
The first thing that begs the question is why in such a situation take a microloan, you can borrow it from friends or relatives, in the end no one canceled consumer loans at the bank. The answer is quite simple - at this stage I had no one to borrow from (although this was the first thought, of course), everyone who could lend their business and projects from vacations to the exact same repairs or buying a car. So it was simply inconvenient to handle.
The bank can consider the loan for quite some time, plus a freelancer like me, getting approval for the right amount is not so simple, and indeed all this paperwork is an amateur.
Well, another important factor - it became just interesting. On the one hand, I urgently needed to get a little money, on the other, I earn a lot more, and soon clients had to start transferring money for work, while other big expenses were not expected. That is, I felt safe and confident that I could quickly repay the debt.
It remained to understand what kind of proposals there are in the microloan market, and how one MFI differs from others.
Gikovsky approach: a comparative analysis of MFIs
My favorite way to find a solution in a situation where there are many factors that influence the final choice is to create a plate in which they are all entered for further comparison.
The problem was that in recent years there has simply been a huge number of microfinance organizations, and analyzing the conditions of each of them is simply an impossible task. Therefore, I decided to select those that “shine” in ratings like this , by ear thanks to online and tv advertising and about which there is no huge amount of negative reviews on different profile sites. It is likely that some options could simply not have come across to me, plus, as I understand it, there are also a certain number of players who are strong in certain regions.
| The name of the microloan service | Methods of obtaining and repaying a loan | Min and max rate | Min and max loan term | Early repayment option | Mobile applications |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Smsfinance | Methods of obtaining: Leader (in cash), Contact (in cash), to the balance of your mobile, Bank account, Bank card, Yandex.Money, Visa Qiwi Wallet, Creditomat (cash) Payment methods: Leader (in cash), Contact (in cash), at the cash desk Otkritie Bank (Cash), cash in terminals via Yandex. Money; transfer to a bank account (Alpha and Opening), Electronic Money Yandex.Money and Qiwi-Wallet, By credit card on the site, Via Internet banking (Alpha, Sberbank, Promsvyazbank) | 0.5% per day - 1.5% per day | 30 days - 9 months | Yes | iOS, Android |
| Vivus | Methods of receiving: cash through Contact, mobile phone, Qiwi, Yandex.Money, bank card, r / s Payment methods: cash through contact, cash through yd (cell phone stores), r / s, through kiwi wallet, via iD (electronic money), bank card, Internet banking (several banks) | 0.996% - 2% | min term - 30 days, extension is unlimited | Yes | Android |
| Moneyman | Methods of receiving: to a bank account, card, Yandex.Money, Contact, Unistream, Zolotaya Korona Repayment methods: card, Qiwi, Eleksnet, MKB terminals, MTS account, Contact, Zolotaya Korona, Euroset, r.account | 0.76% - 1.85% | 5 days - 18 weeks | Yes | Not |
| Mili | Methods of obtaining: on the card corn and in the Euroset salon. Methods of repayment: bank. card, Qiwi-wallet, in the Euroset salon | 2% | 3 to 30 days | Yes | Not |
| Quick money | Methods of receiving: Cash at the office, to the card (which you must also receive at the office at the first call) Payment methods: Qiwi terminal, by details, at the office | 2% | from 1 to 16 days | Yes | Not |
| Great cash | Methods of receiving: cash in the office, into an account, electronic wallet Payment methods: cash in the office, by details, Qiwi | from 1 to 2.25% | from 1 to 20 days | Yes | Not |
| Home Money | Methods of obtaining: To a bank card, bank account Payment methods: terminals MKB, Qiwi, card, Zolotaya Korona, Cyberplat, Rapida, Kari, MTS, Yandex.Money, Sberbank | 0.548% and 0.616% | 26 and 52 weeks | I did not find it on the site (they write that they may refuse early repayment) | Android iOS |
| MIG loan | Methods of obtaining: VISA or MasterCard, CONTACT system, Leader system, Unistream system, bank account Repayment methods: CONTACT, Leader, CyberPlat terminals, Eleksnet terminals, QIWI terminals, RAPIDA system (in Svyaznoy stores), bank transfer by details | from 211.429 to 671.141% per annum (* daily rate is not indicated, I got about 0.58% to 1.84%) | from 3 days to 36 weeks | Yes | Not |
| Kredito24 | Methods of obtaining: Bank card and bank account. Methods of repayment: Bank transfer and transfer through RBK Money | 1.9% per day of the initial loan amount | The minimum loan term is 7 days. Maximum loan term - 30 days | Yes | Not |
| Platiza | Methods of obtaining: Leader (in cash), Contact (in cash), to your mobile balance, Bank account, Bank card, poison, Visa Qiwi Wallet, Creditomat (in cash) Repayment methods: Leader (in cash), Contact (in cash), at the bank cash desk Opening ”(Cash), cash in terminals via Yandex. Money; transfer to a bank account (Alpha and Opening), Poison and Qiwi-Wallet, by credit card on the site, through Internet banking (Alpha, Sberbank, Promsvyazbank) | 0.5% per day - 2.8% per day | 30 days - 9 months | Yes | Android |
| Zaymer | Methods of receiving: At the first appeal, only bank transfer, bank card and Yandex.Money. Methods of repayment: Card, Kiwi terminal, Kiwi wallet, WebMoney, Yandex.Money, settlement. account, through Svyaznoy and Euroset (Y.D), Contact | from 0.63% to 2.40% | from 7 to 30 days | Yes | Not |
| E-zaem | Methods of receiving: Qiwi-wallet, cash through contact, to a bank card, to a payment account. Methods of repayment: Qiwi-terminal, Qiwi-wallet to personal accounts on the site, cash through a contact, to a payment card , in post offices | 1.5% - 2% per day | 5-30 days | Only within 14 days of receipt | Not |
| E-cabbage | Methods of receiving: Visa or MasterCard / Maestro, Visa Qiwi Wallet e-wallets, Yandex.Money, money transfers by Contact and Zolotaya Korona systems or transfers to a bank account. Payment methods: bank card, kiwi, through Yandex.Money, Contact, by bank transfer, using the service Unified Cashier in Internet banks, in Euroset, Svyaznoy terminals | 2.3% per day for the first 7 days of using the loan - 1.7% per day for each subsequent day of using the loan | 7-21 day | Yes | Not |
It is worth saying once again that I do not consider myself an average MFI client, so for me many of the additional opportunities offered by different companies (which they obviously see as a competitive advantage) were unimportant:
- The possibility of extending the loan - I knew for sure when I would have the money to repay, so I was not going to extend the loan;
- Large maximum return period - see above;
- Complementary products - some companies offer different services and products like “credit history correction”, for obvious reasons I didn’t need this;
- Etc.
At the same time, for me personally, the following options were important, actually:
- The amount issued upon first application - to solve my problems, I did not have a certain amount of money, which was higher than those that many MFIs give to borrowers for the first time;
- Percent - I didn’t want to “fall into” some gigantic amounts;
- The ability to get to a bank card is a simple option, but not everyone has it;
- The presence of a mobile application for iOS - still I wanted to conduct all interactions with MFIs in the same way as with the usual Alfa and Tinkov.
Only a couple of companies from the table above fell under these criteria, I applied to both of them and took a loan from the one that responded faster (we omit the name so as not to advertise).
What is the result
Everything went as I planned - I immediately put the amount into the business of completing the repair, soon paying off the microloan.
Now, actually, a few numbers. So, I was approved a loan of 12,000 rubles - at the first application it is hardly possible to get more, as I understand it. According to my calculations, the daily commission for using a loan was about 140 rubles.
I repaid it ahead of schedule and in full (I didn’t see any sense in partial prepayment), after a total of 16 days. It is easy to calculate that I had to return 2240 rubles more, that is, 14240 rubles and another 300 rubles amounted to a commission for transferring to a card.
What can be said from the outcome of this story - there are a lot of different MFIs now, the conditions that they offer are quite different, so choosing a definite best or worst company is quite problematic. Different options suit everyone - and lovers of iPhones like me are clearly not the target audience of most of these services.
Nevertheless, a microloan has shown itself to be a completely normal tool for solving specific problems - the main thing is to understand what to expect and not rejoice at the sight of numbers like 2% (this is per day, per year the overpayment figures are always three-digit). So if someone clearly cannot quickly repay the debt, then going to an MFI is pure madness. But if everything is calculated, and the situation develops without failures - why not. In my case, the situation corresponded to the “take to paycheck” scenario, and it was in this format that no difficulties arose.
That's all for today, I will be glad to answer questions in the comments.