The world today is dominated by technology and social media. The people of every age group are connected to the rest of the world via social media. Whether it may be your shared posts, status, your connections or shared images, social media builds your virtual personality which is shared with almost everyone with an internet connection. The social media has become an integral and unavoidable part of our lives.
The best part of being active on social media is that you will be informed about the happenings of the present day. Whether it may be being in touch with your colleagues on LinkedIn, celebrities on Twitter, or friends and family through your Facebook or Instagram, all your connections will know your recent activities and vice versa.
So, while trying to be connected and informed about the happenings of our surroundings, have you ever thought that someone may be going through your social profiles to gauge your eligibility?
Yes! To the surprise of many social media users, it is true that there are at least two entities who certainly check your social profile before they show you a green flag. The first one is your Employer and the second one is your Lender!
In this tech-driven generation, lenders have started using technology to determine the loan eligibility especially when it comes to a personal loan. Personal loans are unsecured loans. As no security has been collateralized against the loan, there is always a risk factor associated with it at the lender’s end. Hence the lender has to be assured that the loan doesn’t turn into an NPA. In order to minimize the risk of defaulting, lenders nowadays have started checking social platforms where the applicant is active.
Let’s Understand How Social Networks Impact the Loan Eligibility
Facebook: The Modern Way to Check Credit Worthiness
Facebook is the most popular and widely used social network on this planet. Getting an approval through a Facebook profile depends mostly on being the profile a genuine one. One may not need thousands of friends or hundreds of posts on his Facebook page but the person should not post any abnormal behaviour or react to it. Adding to that, if there are persons in his friend list who has a clean credit history and strong credit score, this will enhance the chances of getting an approval.
Lenders also check the mutual contacts who were either previous or ongoing customer of the lender. The repayment habit of those Facebook friends also impacts the creditworthiness of the applicant. In such scenarios, they follow the saying, ‘ Birds of a feather, folks together’. If your friends have a good repayment habit, it helps your loan application to get approval.
Linkedin: The Record of Employment History
The employment or the source of income is one of the very important checklists of the lender. Either it may be an online personal loan or a conventional loan, the repayment capacity of the applicant is thoroughly checked before sanctioning the loan. LinkedIn can serve as the best source to obtain data regarding the job history, duration, professional position and the interests of a person. While applying for a personal loan, one must show the regular source of income to proof the repayment capacity. The LinkedIn profile is checked by the lender to prove the authenticity of your employment document. A person who has a more than 500 connections and a long duration of employment history is considered as favorable applicant by the lender.
The Business Social Media: The Reflection of Your Business
If you are a self-employed person and want to have a business loan or a personal loan, the lenders go through the business social platforms of your business to check the potential cash flow. When a loan application comes from a self-employed person, the lenders become more conscious about determining the eligibility. The strong business social media with a huge number of audiences makes a lender believe in your business that it will earn a profit in coming time. Though one may be running the business social media to market their business, it will at the same time work as a positive push to your loan application.
The social media has become one of the most favorable ways of the lender to check the eligibility. When we are aware that the loan eligibility for our next loan application will be gauged even with our social media too, it is time to be careful what we share with the world.
- We must not rely on the security settings which ensure that your post will be shown ‘only to friends’. We can’t be certain that lenders will not get that post of ours which may depict a substandard picture of us.
- We must not post or react to any post related to finance. This will help the lender make an assumption of your financial condition.
- We are to update our resume. If your job designation in the loan application and your social profile doesn’t match, lenders may take it as a fraud and may not lend you.
- You must build a strong network. If a person has a huge number of friends or followers, the lender believes that the person has influence and he/she is trustworthy too. The presence of lots of friends and followers help your loan application.
A good social presence of a person has become a criterion of Personal Loan Eligibility. Indian banks such as State Bank of India, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Axis Bank etc have already started checking the social media of the applicant for a personal loan online instant approval. Checking the social media profile is not enough, even the applicant’s data captured in Google Maps, payment to Uber cabs, or even the electricity bill payment records are also checked for better clarity on the person’s financial behavior. Whenever it comes to an Online Personal Loan, lenders do check all those aspects to make the loan processing faster better and secure.
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