Advertiser Disclosure
USAA Personal Loans Review
USAA Bank has been providing banking services for military members and their families since its founding in 1922.
Individuals who are currently serving in the U.S. Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marines, Navy, National Guard and Reserves, plus retired military members and family members, have the opportunity to join USAA Bank and take advantage of its services and perks.
Currently, USAA Bank offers members a wide range of financial products ranging from auto insurance and renter’s insurance to checking accounts, savings accounts, and mortgages. USAA also offers personal loans with competitive interest rates and a quick application process that can help you access your funds in no time.
If you’re a military member, a veteran, or a military family member who banks with USAA and needs to borrow money, you may want to consider their personal loan products. Keep reading to learn how they work, how USAA personal loans compare to competitors, and how to get started.
USAA Personal Loans: Key Takeaways
- Borrow between $2,500 and $50,000 and pay it off over 12 months to 84 months.
- Receive an interest-rate discount when you sign up for autopay.
- Apply online and have your loan funds deposited in your bank account as soon as the same business day.
- Interest rates on USAA personal loans range between 9.49% and 17.65%.
- Pay no application fee, no origination fee, and no hidden fees.
USAA Bank Personal Loans: Fast Financing for Military Members
While USAA Bank offers attractive personal loans with a quick and easy application process, they aren’t available for everyone. To qualify for a personal loan from USAA, you must first become a member.
You can become a member if you serve in a branch of the military or are a military veteran who was discharged honorably. Others who qualify include “widows, widowers and un-remarried former spouses of USAA members who had USAA auto or property insurance while married and individuals whose parents have or had USAA auto or property insurance,” notes the bank. You may also be able to qualify for USAA membership if you’re a cadet or a midshipmen “at U.S. service academies, in advanced ROTC or on ROTC scholarship, plus officer candidates within 24 months of commissioning.”
If you meet the criteria to qualify for USAA membership, their personal loans may be a fit for your borrowing needs. USAA states that their loans are perfect for debt consolidation, home remodeling projects, or even adding a pool in your backyard.
One big benefit of USAA personal loans is the fact that you can complete the entire application process online and have the funds deposited in your USAA bank account as soon as the same business day. That makes these loans ideal for military members or veterans who already bank with USAA and need money fast.
USAA also states that you’ll get a 0.25% rate discount for setting up automatic payments, which provides a solid incentive to sign up for this program. The biggest plus of these loans, however, is that they come with no application fees, no origination fee, and no hidden fees.
Here’s an example of a USAA personal loan for a consumer with excellent credit:
USAA Personal Loans: What to Watch Out For
It’s true that USAA offers personal loans with fast and easy funding, but their rates aren’t as low as many competing banks. This is especially true for consumers with excellent credit who may qualify for rates as low as 5.99% APR with lenders like Earnest or Marcus by Goldman Sachs. These lenders also offer loans with no origination fee, application fees, or hidden fees, so they could save you considerable sums of interest over time if you qualified for their lowest rates.
Another downside of USAA’s personal loan offerings is the fact they’re only available to military members. This means regular consumers can’t even apply. You also need to join USAA and become a member before you can even apply for a personal loan. This is an added step some consumers may not want to take, military affiliation or not.
Who USAA Personal Loans are Best For:
- Military members with less than perfect credit who may pay a higher interest rate with other lenders.
- USAA members who need funding the same day.
- Members who want a personal loan with no origination fees or hidden fees.
How We Rate USAA Personal Loans
At The Simple Dollar, we aim to provide a general overview of a lender’s products and services through a standard rating process. After a thorough research and discovery period, here’s how USAA stacks up:
How to Apply for a Personal Loan through USAA
To begin the application process for a personal loan through this bank, you’ll first need to become a USAA member. To become a member, you’ll need to create an account online by providing your date of birth, your contact information, a Social Security number, and details about the military service that deems you eligible.
From there, you can apply for your personal loan online and through USAA’s secure website. USAA doesn’t allow you to get “pre-qualified” for a loan without a hard inquiry on your credit report, but they will show you the rate you qualify for right away if you’re approved. If you decide to move forward, you may be able to have your loan funds deposited in your bank account as soon as the same business day.
Too long, didn’t read?
There are many reasons to consider a personal loan for your borrowing needs. This type of loan comes with a fixed interest rate for starters, but you also get a fixed repayment period and a fixed monthly payment that will never change. Rates for personal loans are also considerably lower than what you’ll get with credit cards, making personal loans are more affordable option any time you need to borrow money for the long haul.
USAA personal loans are a good option for some military members, but consumers with excellent credit would likely save money if they went with a different lender. No matter where you stand, it always make sense to shop around and compare loan terms and rates with at least three lenders before you decide.
Keep Reading
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.
