Truist Bank Personal Loans: 2024 Review

Truist Bank offers personal loans with fast funding, but the loans don’t include some features that are common among other lenders, like pre-qualification or a rate discount.

The bank lends in 17 states and Washington, D.C., and you don’t have to be an existing customer to borrow.

» MORE: Best bank loans

Table of contents

Truist personal loans at a glance

Where Truist personal loans stand out and fall short

How to use Truist personal loans

Truist personal loan customer reviews

Do you qualify for a Truist personal loan?

How to apply for a Truist personal loan

Compare Truist to other lenders

How we rate Truist personal loans

Truist personal loans at a glance

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Where Truist personal loans stand out

Fast approval and funding: For borrowers who need quick cash, Truist can approve and fund personal loans quickly. According to the lender’s website, as long as it’s a business banking day, borrowers can receive the money in their account the same day they’re approved.

No origination fee: Few banks charge an origination fee, and Truist is no different. Origination fees typically range from 1% to 10% of the loan amount and increase the overall cost of borrowing.

Joint loan option: Truist offers joint loans, meaning you can add a co-borrower to your application. A co-borrower with better credit and a higher income may help you qualify for a lower rate or higher loan amount. Co-borrowers also have access to the loan funds and are equally responsible for missed payments.

Direct payment to creditors: If you want to consolidate high-interest debts with a personal loan, Truist will send the funds directly to your creditors, leaving you with just your loan payment. Though not a must-have for a debt consolidation loan, this perk removes the task of sending funds yourself.

In order to have Truist send funds directly to creditors, borrowers must provide a 10-day payoff letter (a document showing the cost to pay off the loan within 10 days, including interest) for each creditor they intend to pay.

» COMPARE: Best debt consolidation loans

Payment date flexibility: Truist will let you choose your payment date before signing the loan documents, and you can change it multiple times after. This level of flexibility isn’t offered by all lenders, and it can be helpful, especially if the date you get paid changes over the life of the loan.

Where Truist personal loans fall short

No option to pre-qualify: Unlike some of its competitors, Truist doesn’t allow borrowers to pre-qualify and see their potential loan amount, rate and monthly payment before formally applying. Pre-qualifying will not affect your credit score, and doing so with multiple lenders is the best way to compare loans.

No rate discount: Some lenders offer rate discounts for setting up automatic payments or sending the loan funds directly to pay off creditors. This discount typically ranges from 0.25 to 0.5 percentage points and is applied directly to the loan’s annual percentage rate, or APR. Truist does not offer a rate discount.

Transparency: The Truist website includes a product page that explains some features of its personal loan, including APR range and funding timeline. However, it doesn’t clearly display its full range of loan amounts, and it doesn’t have a dedicated FAQ page that answers basic loan questions like how to apply or make payments.

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How to use Truist personal loans

Truist personal loans can be used for debt consolidation, home improvement projects, emergencies, medical bills, vacations, weddings, funeral expenses and vehicle financing.

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Truist personal loan customer reviews

As of September 2024, Truist has 1.2 stars on Trustpilot, a website that collects consumer reviews. Reviewers covered products beyond personal loans and mentioned customer service, issues managing loans and functionality of the website. The lender’s mobile app received 4.7 stars across 261,000 reviews on Google Play and 4.8 stars across 804,800 reviews on the Apple App Store.

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Do you qualify for a Truist personal loan?

Truist Bank doesn't publicly disclose many of its personal loan requirements, but it accepts borrowers with good to excellent credit (690 credit score or higher). Here’s what you need to apply:

• Personal and contact information, including a U.S.-based cell phone number.

• Two years of address and employment history.

• Financial information including income, debts and other obligations.

According to the lender, once you submit an online application, Truist will email you with a decision or call to request more information.

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How to apply for a Truist personal loan

Here are the steps to apply for a Truist loan.

1. Apply on Truist’s website or by phone if you’re a customer. Because Truist doesn’t let you pre-qualify for a loan, your first step is to submit a formal personal loan application. This could require documentation, like W-2s, pay stubs and bank statements to confirm your information. Truist will do a hard credit check when you apply, so your credit score could temporarily dip.

2. Stay on top of your loan payments. Truist reports payments to the three main credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion), so on-time payments will help build your credit, but missed payments will hurt it. Setting up automatic payments and keeping an eye on your budget are two ways to manage your loan payments.

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Compare Truist to other lenders

Personal loan lenders offer different rates, loan amounts and special features, so it pays to weigh other options. The best personal loan is usually the one with the lowest APR.

Discover and SoFi accept borrowers with similar credit profiles as Truist and offer debt consolidation loans. Their loans are available in all 50 states.

Discover

» MORE: Read our review of Discover

SoFi

» MORE: Read our review of SoFi

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How we rate Truist personal loans

NerdWallet writers rate lenders against a rubric that changes each year based on how personal loan products evolve. Here’s what we prioritized this year:

• Category definitions

  Affordability (25%)

  An affordable loan has low rates and fees compared to other similar loans and may offer rate discounts.

  Customer experience (20%)

  A good customer experience includes allowing borrowers to choose and change their repayment date, a fully online application process, a mobile app to manage the loan and a customer service team with wide availability.

  Underwriting and eligibility (20%)

  The lender reviews borrowers’ credit reports and credit history and tries to understand their ability to repay a loan. It offers loans in most states and doesn’t restrict eligibility by requiring a pre-existing relationship.

  Application process (20%)

  Borrowers can pre-qualify to check their potential rate, loan amount, repayment term and APR without affecting their credit score. They can easily find answers to questions about the personal loan on the lender’s website. The application process is fast enough to allow funding within a couple of days or less.

  Loan flexibility (15%)

  A flexible loan is one that offers a wide range of loan amounts and repayment term options. It includes common features like additional loan types and direct payment to creditors on debt consolidation loans.

  Discretionary

  A lender’s star rating can be reduced if the lender is sued by a state or federal regulator for unfair consumer practices or has been accused by a reputable source of suspicious business practices.

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