Peerform Loan Overview and Alternatives
Peerform, a peer-to-peer (P2P) lending marketplace, no longer accepts new personal loan applications. A P2P loan is a type of debt in which individual investors — as opposed to commercial lenders — offer personal loans, typically through a lending marketplace.
Peerform’s platform offered personal loans to borrowers with less-than-ideal credit who weren’t able to obtain a personal loan through traditional lenders. Thankfully, there are other bad credit loans that you might still qualify for, now that Peerform is no longer taking applications.
Alternatives to Peerform personal loans
Peer-to-peer lenders are few and far between these days, but other types of lenders also offer fair and bad credit loans. Here’s what you need to know about alternative options to Peerform personal loans.
| Best Egg | Upgrade | Upstart | |
|---|---|---|---|
| LendingTree’s rating | 4.4/5 | 4.6/5 | 4.5/5 |
| Minimum credit score | 580 | 580 | 300 |
| APRs | 6.99% - 35.99% | 7.99% - 35.99% (with discounts) | 6.70% - 35.99% |
| Loan amounts | $2,000 - $50,000 | $1,000 - $50,000 | $1,000 - $50,000 |
| Repayment terms | 36 to 60 months | 24 to 84 months | 36 or 60 months |
| Origination fee | 0.99% - 9.99% | 1.85% - 9.99% | 0.00% - 12.00% |
| Funding timeline | May receive funds within one to three business days | May receive funds within one business day | May receive funds within one business day |
| Bottom line | Funding can take up to three business days, but Best Egg offers unique loan options, including a loan that uses your home’s permanent fixtures as collateral. | Has a higher minimum APR, but Upgrade allows you to add a second person to your loan while the other lenders here don’t. | Could be best whether you have excellent or bad credit. Upstart has an ultra-low starting rate, but it also accepts credit scores as low as 300. |
Best Egg
A secured loan requires collateral and an unsecured loan doesn’t. Best Egg offers both. Secured loans are typically easier to qualify for and they often come with lower rates. Best Egg accepts two forms of collateral: the fixtures inside your home (if you’re a homeowner) or your car. But since Best Egg loans start at $2,000, it might not work if you need a small loan.
Upgrade
Upgrade also accepts cars as collateral but if you aren’t interested in a secured loan, maybe a joint loan is a better fit. A joint loan includes you and a co-borrower, who ideally has excellent credit. Adding a second person to your loan can make it easier to get approved. However, late payments will affect your co-borrowers credit score as well as yours. Your co-borrower will also have legal right to your loan funds.
Upstart
Upstart takes into account more than just credit history — it considers other factors like your employment status and income. It also uses AI to predict how likely it is that an applicant will stop paying their loan. As a result, it has one of the lowest minimum credit scores on the market (300). And if you have strong credit, you might get an ultra-competitive rate as low as 6.70%.
How we rate lenders
To come up with our star rating for personal loan companies, LendingTree considered 22 data points across three categories:
- Accessibility: We paid attention to whether lenders offered loans to nontraditional borrowers, as well as those without excellent credit scores. We also checked if lenders offered soft credit pulls, and whether they were transparent about eligibility criteria other than credit scores.
- Rates and terms: We wanted to know if lender rates, terms, amounts and fees were not only transparent, but competitive.
- Repayment experience: We based this category on lenders’ reputations, customer support availability and unique benefits.
The data points reflect every step of the process to shop and apply for, borrow and repay personal loans. A five-star lender, for instance, has flexible eligibility requirements, offers you the chance to prequalify without commitment and supports you in zeroing your balance.
The 22 data points, culled from the lenders themselves, determine the overall rating. We score lenders consistently, sometimes awarding partial points, so that you can make apples-to-apples comparisons when shopping around.
LendingTree isn’t paid for conducting these reviews, and lenders don’t have control over their content. With our reviews and ratings, we aim to give our users the objective and exhaustive information they need to make the best possible decisions.
Frequently asked questions
Peerform no longer accepts personal loan applications — so if you’re in the market to consolidate debt or cover an expense, you’ll have to shop around with other lenders. Prequalify for loans with multiple lenders, so you can compare rates, terms, fees and borrowing limits without any impact to your credit score.
The credit score needed for a personal loan depends on several factors, including the lender and how much you plan to borrow. Typically, lenders look for a minimum credit score anywhere from 580 to 680 — though you could qualify with a lower score with some lenders (such as Upstart). The higher the credit score, the higher your chances of approval.
Peer-to-peer loans generally cater to those who have difficulty qualifying for traditional loans — as such, you may have to pay higher rates and fees. Also, always research your lender before accepting a loan. You can do this by reading LendingTree lender reviews and looking up the lender on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) customer complaint database.