Helping Hand
Helping Hand loans are for members who need financial assistance, but do not qualify for a traditional loan.
When all else fails, Helping Hand loans can be a way to help members out of a tight spot. They are an unsecured loan that can be approved outside of normal loan policies, with guidelines of their own. When a loan fits within the following guidelines (regardless of open collections, used unsecured limit, too high of DTI, credit score below 625, etc), it can be approved by a lender with full lending authority on their own. Lenders with limited approval authority will need one lender with full approval authority as an approval signature.
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Loan is processed under the Helping Hand purpose code to identify all loans for reporting purposes under the new purpose type.
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Members must have an established membership with the Credit Union for a minimum of 6 months.
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Loan amounts are limited to $500 but could be as low as $100.
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Loan Terms may not exceed 12 Months (No extensions for adding Debt Protection).
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All Interest Rates for this purpose type are a fixed rate of 18%.
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Members may not have more than one of these purpose types open at the same time with the Credit Union.
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Only one Helping Hand per household at a time.
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Members may not have more than two of these purpose type loans within a 12-month period of time and the waiting period between payoff of old loan and opening a new loan with this purpose type will be 6 months. Exceptions to these time limits must be approved by the Director of Lending, Lending Development Administrator, CLO, or CEO.
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No extensions or holiday skips allowed on these loans.
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No prior loss the Connections Credit Union.
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Members with an existing ODP loan must have application reviewed by the Resolutions Department and their approval must be noted on the worksheet.
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Exceptions to any of the above items must be approved by the Director of Lending, Lending Development Administrator, CLO, or CEO with valid reasoning and comments on the worksheet.