Bank Of Ireland-Travel Loans

thelongfellow

Bank of Ireland are getting out of the travel loans business. Twice in the last 3 weeks I have been told that these bankers are not in the business of funding trips abroad-be it a shortterm holiday or year away.

What next for these beliguard shower of bankers? Considering they are not lending to small businesses are they liable to stop lending altogether?

maddogcollins

Travel loans would normally have been given out in the good times, especially for the year away based on the assumption that there would have been a reasonable chance of finding employment when you come back to pay it back.

However now, there is a reasonable chance that you will not find work when you come back and more importantly IF you come back.

It is just the way things are gone.

I dont think they wil stop lending the will just tighten up and be sensible about it all now.

Toots

BOI only ever did travel loans for students, and you can only apply for them during a certain window each year (just coming up to the summer). They're mainly geared towards students going on the likes of a J1. They have to be attending college full time also, and they'll need someone to be a guarantor for the loan.

They're still offering these loans for students, but in all the years I've worked there I've never heard of one being given to a non-student just looking for money for a holiday. Similarly, I've never seen a situation where someone was allowed to defer payments for a year because they're going abroad. The student travel loan can be taken for up to nine months and at the end of the nine months it has to be repaid in full, either in one bullet repayment or else if the student can make ad-hoc lodgements during the term of the loan.

It's like maddogcollins said, they're still lending, the criteria are stricter however. I can also tell you from personal experience that they are lending to small businesses. I'm not sure where you got your information from but you need to check your source because they've got their facts wrong.

thelongfellow

Toots* wrote: »

BOI only ever did travel loans for students, and you can only apply for them during a certain window each year (just coming up to the summer). They're mainly geared towards students going on the likes of a J1. They have to be attending college full time also, and they'll need someone to be a guarantor for the loan.

They're still offering these loans for students, but in all the years I've worked there I've never heard of one being given to a non-student just looking for money for a holiday. Similarly, I've never seen a situation where someone was allowed to defer payments for a year because they're going abroad. The student travel loan can be taken for up to nine months and at the end of the nine months it has to be repaid in full, either in one bullet repayment or else if the student can make ad-hoc lodgements during the term of the loan.

It's like maddogcollins said, they're still lending, the criteria are stricter however. I can also tell you from personal experience that they are lending to small businesses. I'm not sure where you got your information from but you need to check your source because they've got their facts wrong.

Your wrong. Travel loans have been offered in the recent past (before BOI shat all over themselves) to non-students but this practice has been stopped.

A former work colleague two years out of college, with a job to come back too and a letter stating it, a guarantor and a strong banking history with BOI was basically told to F off when he applied for a smallish loan to help with travelling for the year.

He then went to AIB with the letter and guarantor but no banking history with them. They gave him a travel loan.

I can tell you from my own personal experience that BOI are not interested in small business at the minute. Seems to be a shift towards big business and high value customers.