Borrow to paycheck: how to take a microcredit geek, and what came of it (spoiler: everything is ok)

In the past few years, probably every Internet user has already run into heartbreaking stories about how certain microfinance clients are driving themselves into a debt trap, gaining loans at high interest rates, which they cannot return. As a result, the image of such companies has been very specific, and, I am sure, most users of Geektimes never intend to contact them in their life.

Among them was me, but not so long ago, “life made its own adjustments” and I still had to look for an opportunity to intercept tens or two thousand rubles before my salary. For various reasons (about them below) I decided to try to take a microcredit yet. However, it was necessary to approach this case thoroughly, so it was decided to take a geek approach and analyze possible options.

Why and why

The situation of a shortage of a relatively large amount of money (for simplicity, we assume that the amount is more than 10k rubles) arose in a completely banal way - during the repair in the apartment it turned out that it would not be possible to keep within the designated budget. Unfortunately, I do not understand this, so I trust the hired craftsmen and suppliers of materials that they recommend, and there is no time to look for any cheaper options for acquiring materials.
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So, some materials turned out to be more expensive than planned, and it was urgent to find a little more than ten thousand rubles somewhere to cover the “cash gap” that arose in this way.



And then it turned out that the new tile will cost more than expected

First of all, the question arises - why in such a situation to take a microcredit, you can borrow from friends or relatives, in the end no one has canceled consumer loans in the bank. The answer is quite simple - at this stage I did not have anyone to take (although it was the first thought, naturally), everyone who could give in debt had their own affairs and projects from holidays to exactly the same repairs or car purchases. So it was just awkward to handle.

The bank can consider a loan for quite a long time, plus a freelancer like me, getting approval for the necessary amount is not so easy, and indeed all this paperwork is an amateur.

Well, another important factor - it became just interesting. On the one hand, I urgently needed to get some money, on the other, I earn much more, and soon the clients had to start transferring money for work, while other large expenses were not expected. That is, I felt safe and was confident that I could quickly repay a debt.

It only remained to understand what offers on the microcredit market are generally available, and how one MFI differs from others.

“Gikovsky” approach: a comparative analysis of MFIs

My favorite way to find a solution in a situation where there are many factors influencing the final choice is to create a label in which they are all entered for further comparison.

The problem was that microfinance organizations in recent years have simply divorced a huge number, and analyzing the conditions of each of them is simply an impossible task. Therefore, I decided to select those that “shine” in ratings like this , at the hearing of thanks to online and TV advertising, and about which there is no huge number of negative reviews on various specialized sites. It is likely that some options I could just not get caught, plus, as I understand it, there are a certain number of players who are strong in certain regions.

Name of microloan service	Ways to get and repay a loan	Min and max rate	Min and max loan term	Early repayment option	Mobile applications
Smsfinance	Receiving methods: Leader (in cash), Contact (cash), to mobile balance, Bank account, Bank card, Yandex.Money, Visa Qiwi Wallet, Creditomat (cash) Repayment options: Leader (in cash), Contact (cash), in the cash desk of Otkritie Bank (Cash), in cash at the terminals through Yandex. Money; transfer to a bank account (Alpha and Discovery), Yandex.Money Electronic Money and Qiwi-Wallet, Bank card on the site, Via Internet banking (Alpha, Sber, Promsvyazbank)	0.5% per day - 1.5% per day	30 days - 9 months	Yes	iOS, Android
Vivus	Ways to receive: cash through Contact, mobile phone, Qiwi, Yandex. Money, bank card, p / s Ways of redemption: cash through contact, cash through ID (salons hundred. Communication), p / s, through Qiwi-purse, through ID (electronic money), bank card, Internet banking (several banks)	0.996% - 2%	min term - 30 days, renewal unlimited	Yes	Android
Moneyman	Receipt methods: to bank account, card, Yandex.Money, Contact, Unistream, Golden Crown Redemption methods: card, Qiwi, Eleksnet, ICD terminals, MTS account, Contact, Golden Crown, Euroset, river account	0.76% - 1.85%	5 days - 18 weeks	Yes	Not
Mili	Methods of obtaining: on the corn map and in the Euroset showroom Repayment options: bank. card, Qiwi-wallet, in the Euroset showroom	2%	3 - 30 days	Yes	Not
Fast money	Ways to obtain: Cash in the office, on the card (which you also need to get in the office when you first apply) Repayment options: Qiwi-terminal, by requisites, in the office	2%	from 1 to 16 days	Yes	Not
Excellent cash	Ways to receive: cash in the office, to the account, e-wallet Ways of repayment: cash in the office, by requisites, Qiwi	from 1 to 2.25%	from 1 to 20 days	Yes	Not
Home Money	Methods of obtaining: To a bank card, current account Redemption methods: terminals ICD, Qiwi, card, Golden Crown, Cyberplat, Rapida, Kari, MTS, Yandex.Money, Sberbank	0.548% and 0.616%	26 and 52 weeks	I did not find it on the site (they write that they can refuse early repayment)	Android, iOS
MIG credit	Receipt methods: VISA or MasterCard, CONTACT system, Leader system, Unistream system, bank account Repayment options: CONTACT, Leader, CyberPlat terminals, Eleksnet terminals, QIWI terminals, RAPIDA system (in Svyaznoy stores), bank transfer by requisites	from 211.429 to 671.141% per annum (* the rate per day is not specified, I got from about 0.58% to 1.84%)	from 3 days to 36 weeks	Yes	Not
Kredito24	Ways to obtain: Bank card and bank account Ways of redemption: Bank transfer and transfer through RBK Money	1.9% per day of the initial loan amount	The minimum loan period is 7 days. Maximum loan period - 30 days	Yes	Not
Platiza	Receipt methods: Leader (in cash), Contact (cash), to mobile balance, Bank account, Bank card, POISON, Visa Qiwi Wallet, Creditomat (cash) Repayment options: Leader (in cash), Contact (cash), in the cash desk of Otkritie Bank (Cash), in cash at the terminals through Yandex. Money; transfer to a bank account (Alpha and Discovery), POISON and Qiwi-Wallet, by credit card on the site, through Internet banking (Alpha, Sber, Promsvyazbank)	0.5% per day - 2.8% per day	30 days - 9 months	Yes	Android
Zaymer	Ways to obtain: On first access, only bank transfer, bank card and Yandex.Money Repayment options: Map, Kiwi-terminal, Kiwi-wallet, WebMoney, Yandex.Money, calc. account, through Svyaznoy and Euroset (Ya.D.), Contact	from 0.63% to 2.40%	from 7 to 30 days	Yes	Not
E-zaem	Methods of receipt: Qiwi-wallet, in cash through contact, to a bank card, to a p / c Ways of redemption: Qiwi-terminal, Qiwi-wallet in the LC on the site, in cash through contact, on the p / s, in post offices	1.5% - 2% per day	5-30 days	Only within 14 days of receipt	Not
E-cabbage	Receipt methods: Visa or MasterCard / Maestro, electronic wallets Visa Qiwi Wallet, Yandex.Money, money transfers from the Contact system and the Golden Crown, or transfers to a bank account. Repayment options: bank card, QIWI, via Yandex.Money, Kontakt, bank transfer, using the United Cash Desk in Internet banks, in Euroset, Svyaznoy terminals	2.3% per day for the first 7 days of using the loan - 1.7% per day for each subsequent day of using the loan	7-21 days	Yes	Not

It should be said again that I do not consider myself an average MFI client, so many additional opportunities offered by different companies (which they obviously see as a competitive advantage) were not important for me:

• The possibility of extending the loan - I knew exactly when I would have money to pay off, so I was not going to renew the loan;
• Large maximum repayment period - see above;
• Additional products - some companies offer different services and products like “credit history corrections”, for obvious reasons I didn’t need it;
• Etc.

At the same time, for me personally, such options were important:

• The amount issued at the first appeal - for solving my problems I lacked a certain amount of money, which was higher than those that many MFIs give borrowers for the first time;
• The percentage - “to fall” on some huge amounts did not want to;
• The possibility of receiving a bank card is a simple option, but not everyone has it;
• The presence of a mobile application for iOS - I still wanted to conduct all interactions with MFIs just as with Alpha and Tinkoff I used to.

Only a couple of companies from the table above came under these criteria, I applied to both of them and took a loan from the one that reacted faster (we’ll omit the name so as not to advertise).

What is the result

Everything went as I had planned - I immediately let the amount received to complete the repair, soon repaying a microloan.

Now, actually, a few numbers. So, I was approved a loan of 12,000 rubles - at the first appeal it is hardly possible to get more, as I understand it. According to my calculations, the daily commission for the use of the loan was about 140 rubles.

I redeemed it ahead of time and in full (I did not see the point in partial early repayment), taking a total of 16 days. It is easy to calculate that I had to return 2240 rubles more, that is, 14240 rubles and another 300 rubles was the commission for the transfer to the card.

What can be said about the result of this whole story? There are a lot of different MFIs now, the conditions they offer are quite different, so choosing one uniquely better or worse company is rather problematic. Different options are suitable for everyone - and lovers of "iPhones" like me are clearly not the target audience for most of these services.

Nevertheless, microcredit showed itself as a completely normal tool for solving specific tasks - the main thing is to understand what to expect, and not to rejoice at the sight of numbers like 2% (after all, overpay numbers are always three-digit numbers per year). So if someone is clearly unable to quickly repay a debt, then going to an MFI is pure insanity. But if everything is calculated, and the situation develops without failures - why not. In my case, the situation corresponded to the “take up pay” scenario, and it was in this format that there were no difficulties.

That's all for today, I will be glad to answer questions in the comments.