Santander Personal Loans: 2024 Review

Santander is a global bank that offers unsecured personal loans in select states across the U.S. The lender is ideal for borrowers with good to excellent credit (scores above 689) who have an existing relationship with the bank.

With no origination fee and direct payment to creditors, Santander’s personal loan is a strong option for debt consolidation. This lender lets existing customers pre-qualify for a personal loan online. Non-customers can preview potential loan offers, including their interest rate, through affiliate sites like NerdWallet.

» COMPARE: Best bank loans

Table of Contents

Santander loans at a glance

Where Santander personal loans stand out and fall short

How to use Santander personal loans

Santander personal loan customer reviews

Do you qualify for a Santander personal loan?

How to apply for a Santander personal loan

How Santander personal loans compare

How we rate Santander personal loans

Santander personal loans at a glance

• Disclosure from Santander

  Personal Loans are subject to individual approval and meeting our credit standards. Your primary residence must be located in AZ, CA, CT, CO, DC, DE, FL, GA, IL, IN, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, NC, NJ, NH, NY, OH, OR, PA, RI, TN, TX, VA, VT, or WA. The fixed loan Annual Percentage Rate (APR) will depend on your creditworthiness and use of automatic payments (ePay) from any deposit account. The APR on a Personal Loan will increase by 0.25 percentage points and the payment will increase, if ePay is not elected or is discontinued. Fixed loan APRs (with ePay) range from 7.99% to 24.99% and are subject to change without notice. Loan amounts range from $5,000 to $50,000. Loan repayment terms range from 36 months to 84 months. All terms are subject to change without notice. Personal Loans cannot be used to finance post secondary educational expenses. Personal Loan Monthly Payment Example: For a personal loan of $20,000 with a 60-month term at 15.49% APR, the monthly payment amount is approximately $480.96 to repay your loan in 60 payments. This example is an estimate only and assumes all payments are made on time. Based on the time your application is received, same-day funding is available in many cases, depending on your creditworthiness and the funding instructions you provide. Santander Bank, N.A. is a Member FDIC and a wholly owned subsidiary of Banco Santander, S.A. ©2024 Santander Bank, N.A. All rights reserved. Santander, Santander Bank and the Flame logo are trademarks of Banco Santander, S.A. or its subsidiaries in the United States or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their owners.

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Where Santander personal loans stand out

No origination fee: Santander does not charge an origination fee on personal loans, unlike some online lenders. Origination fees typically range from 1% to 10% of the loan amount and are usually taken from the loan proceeds before disbursement.

» MORE: Best personal loans with no origination fee

Offers direct payment to creditors on debt consolidation loans: For borrowers who want to consolidate debt, Santander can send personal loan proceeds directly to creditors. This feature simplifies the process of paying back individual creditors. Just be sure your balances reach zero before you stop making payments toward other debts.

» COMPARE: Best debt consolidation loans

Mobile app to manage the loan: Santander's mobile app allows borrowers to manage their personal loan, contact customer service and make payments from their phones. Mobile apps are relatively common among lenders, but some still don't have one.

Fast funding: Santander says it can usually make an approval decision the same day a borrower applies for a personal loan. From application to funding, the whole process takes about two days on average, according to the lender.

Where Santander personal loans fall short

No co-signed, joint or secured loan options: Santander only offers unsecured personal loans for one applicant. This means you cannot add a co-borrower or co-signer to the loan, or secure it with collateral, like a bank account or vehicle. These options, which other lenders offer, can help borrowers get approved or receive a lower rate or larger loan amount.

» MORE: Best secured personal loans

No option to change your payment date: Borrowers can select their loan payment date before finalizing their Santander loan. However, you can’t change the payment date once the loan is approved. The ability to change the due date is helpful if you get a new job and your pay schedule changes, for example.

No hardship program: Santander does not offer a hardship program for borrowers who become unemployed or face financial difficulty. Most other lenders have programs that allow borrowers to delay loan payments.

» MORE: Best personal loan lenders

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How to use Santander personal loans

Santander personal loan customer reviews

As of September 2024, Santander has 1.6 stars on Trustpilot, a website that collects consumer reviews. The rating includes customer reviews from many products the bank offers, including bank accounts and credit cards, and from consumers in other countries. Customer service is a focus of many negative reviews on the site.

The lender’s mobile app received 4.4 stars across 56,400 reviews on Google Play and 4.7 stars across 364,300 reviews on the Apple App Store.

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Do you qualify for a Santander personal loan?

To be eligible to apply online for a Santander personal loan, you must be an existing customer or have an offer code.

Eligible borrowers also must:

• Be 18 years or older. 

• Have a primary residence in a qualifying state.

• Have a smartphone (if applying for a loan online). 

• Provide a valid tax identification or Social Security number.

The lender doesn’t provide many of its minimum borrowing requirements, such as credit history or maximum debt-to-income ratio, but borrowers must have a credit score of 700 or higher.

• Santander’s average borrower snapshot

  • Average borrower’s credit score: 745.

  • Average loan amount: $22,000.

  • Average repayment term: 5 years.

  • Average APR: 14%.

  • Most common loan purpose: Debt consolidation.

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How to apply for a Santander personal loan

Here are the steps to apply for a Santander loan online.

1. Pre-qualify online to preview potential loan offers. Before you can check your rate on the Santander's website, the bank asks if you’re an existing customer. If not, you’ll see a message asking for an offer code and the last four digits of your Social Security number. Non-customers and those without an offer code can check their rates via an affiliate website.

2. Preview loan offers and accept the one that fits your budget. Once you accept a loan offer, you’ll submit a formal personal loan application. This could require more documents, like W-2s, pay stubs and tax documents to confirm the information you gave during pre-qualification. Santander will also do a hard credit check when you apply, so your credit score could temporarily dip.

3. Stay on top of your loan payments. Santander reports payment to all three major credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion), so on-time payments will help build your credit score, 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 Santander 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.

For borrowers with excellent credit, Discover and LightStream are online lenders that don’t require an existing relationship before applying.

Discover

» MORE: Read our review of Discover

LightStream

» MORE: Read our review of LightStream

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How we rate Santander 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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