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BBVA Personal Loans Review
BBVA offers an array of personal and business banking solutions for individuals, commercial customers, and corporations. On the consumer side of the spectrum, their offerings include mortgages, home equity loans, auto loans, and personal loans.
Their personal loan offering — the BBVA Express Personal Loan — is an extremely popular option on the market, partly because it’s possible to get your funds as soon as the same business day. BBVA also offers some of the lowest interest rates available anywhere if you link your account with a BBVA checking account, and there are no hidden fees or prepayment penalties.
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BBVA Personal Loans Review: Key Takeaways
- Get a fixed APR between 4.99% and 28.99% with auto-debit from a BBVA checking account.
- Borrow up to $100,000, or up to $35,000 with an online reservation code.
- Repay your loan over 12 to 72 months.
- Get pre-qualified for a personal loan without a hard inquiry on your credit report.
Who BBVA Personal Loans are Best For:
- BBVA customers who already have a checking account with the bank.
- Anyone who lives in a state that is serviced by BBVA already.
- Consumers who need to borrow up to $100,000 via a personal loan.
BBVA Personal Loans: Low-Cost Loans Perfect for BBVA Customers
If you’re in the market for a personal loan and already have a checking account with BBVA, it would be difficult to find a better offer than with your own bank. BBVA extends interest rates as low as 4.99% APR to their checking account customers who sign up for automatic payments. Of course, you’ll need good or excellent credit and a sufficient income to qualify for such a low rate. If you don’t qualify for their lowest rate, you’ll get a one-percentage-point rate discount for being a BBVA checking account customer.
Another benefit of BBVA is the fact you can borrow up to $100,000 if you apply in a physical branch. That’s considerably more than most personal lenders offer consumers, and there are no collateral requirements for these loans. We also like the fact you can repay your BBVA personal loan for up to 72 months. This is longer than many competing lenders who only offer loan terms for up to 48 or 60 months.
BBVA doesn’t list a minimum credit score requirement for their loans, nor do they list a minimum income requirement. Fortunately, they do let you get pre-qualified for one of their loans without a hard inquiry on your credit report. This makes it possible to gauge your ability to receive the funds you need without moving forward with a full loan application.
Here’s an example of how a BBVA personal loan might look for qualified borrowers:
BBVA Personal Loans: What to Watch Out For
The biggest downside of BBVA is the fact that their personal loans can only be accessed online if you have a reservation code from the bank. Even then, you can only borrow up to $35,000 through their online loan application process. If your borrowing needs are greater than that, you’ll need to apply for your personal loan in a physical bank branch.
Unfortunately, BBVA only offers branches in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, and Texas. This makes BBVA an unlikely option for most people who live in the United states — unless they receive a reservation code in the mail.
Another downside of BBVA is the fact that they charge a surcharge on their personal loans. Similar to an origination fee, this surcharge is unavoidable and charged based on your loan amount. For loans up to $9,999, you’ll pay a surcharge of $60. For loan amounts of $10,000 or more, the surcharge jumps to $120.
How to Apply for a Personal Loan from BBVA
You can apply for a personal loan from BBVA over the phone or in a physical branch at any time, but you’ll need a reservation code to apply for one of their loans online. Once you get access to a BBVA reservation code, you have the option to get pre-qualified for a loan without a hard inquiry on your credit report. To do so, you’ll need to provide:
- Your Social Security number
- Your birthdate
- Desired loan amount
- Income information
- Employment details
Once you submit the above information, BBVA will look over your details and determine whether you’re a good candidate for one of their loan options. If you have what it takes to qualify, they’ll send you information on the amount of money you’re able to borrow, your interest rate, and other loan terms.
If you decide to move forward, BBVA may require additional information to prove your income, employment, and other personal details. Once you’re approved for your loan, it’s possible to get your funds as soon as the same business day.
BBVA Review: The Bottom Line
BBVA personal loans may be one of the lowest cost options available, but their geographic reach is severely limited and their best terms only go to BBVA checking account customers. Also note that, even if you want to apply online, you can’t do so unless you get your hands on a reservation code.
Unless you’re a BBVA customer already or you live near one of their bank branches in a state they service, it’s unlikely this lender will be ideal for your needs. Either way, it’s smart to shop around for personal loans with at least three or four lenders. Take the time to make an “apples to apples” comparison that looks at interest rates, repayment terms, your monthly payment, and your total loan amount before you decide.
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Methodology
The SimpleScore is a proprietary scoring metric we use to objectively compare products and services at The Simple Dollar.
For every review, our editorial team:
- Identifies five measurable aspects to compare across each brand
- Determines the rating criteria for each aspect score
- Averages the five aspect scores to produce a single SimpleScore
Here’s a breakdown of the five aspect scores and their rating criteria for our review of the best personal loans of 2020.
Why do some brands have different SimpleScores on different pages?
To ensure the SimpleScore is as helpful and accurate as possible, we developed unique criteria for every category we compare at The Simple Dollar. Since most brands offer a variety of financial solutions, their products and services will score differently depending on what we’re scoring on a given page.
However, it’s also possible for the same product from the same brand to have multiple SimpleScores. For instance, if we compare NetCredit’s personal loans according to our criteria for the best personal loans, it scores a 2.3 out of 5. But when we compare NetCredit according to the criteria for the best bad credit personal loans, it scores considerably higher, since the criteria for the latter review are more lenient (lenders who serve borrowers with bad credit will always offer higher rates, so we needed to adjust our category methodology to account for different industry standards).
Questions about our methodology?
Email Hayley Armstrong at hayley@thesimpledollar.com.
Rates
We looked at the maximum APR for each lender — the lower their maximum rate, the higher their score.
Loan Size
We awarded higher scores to lenders with more generous loan sizes.
Customer Satisfaction
We leveraged the J.D. Power 2019 Personal Loan Satisfaction Study℠ to see how customers rated their experience with each lender. (If a lender wasn’t included in J.D. Power’s study, we skipped this aspect and averaged the four remaining aspect scores.)
Support
We awarded higher scores to lenders with the most channels for customer support.
Fees
We looked at the three most common fees — origination, late payment, and pre-payment — and penalized lenders for each fee charged.
