General FAQs

i) Citizens of India/Indian passport holders currently enrolled or planning to enrol in an eligible course can apply.

ii) The co-borrower (see 3.2) must also be an Indian national or passport holder.

iii) Non Resident Indians (NRIs) with an Indian passport or with an Overseas Citizens of India (OCI) or Persons of Indian Origin (PIO) cards are also eligible to apply for an education loan at InCred. Certain additional conditions are required to be met for such applicants and co-borrowers on a case-specific basis.

Currently, InCred education loans are available for eligible programs in all major destinations including the United States of America, Canada, Australia, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Netherlands, India etc.

Yes possible

i) InCred provides education loans for courses at the undergraduate (bachelor), graduate (master) and doctoral levels. Certifications and diplomas are also eligible.

ii) In terms of fields or streams of study or majors or subject areas, InCred has loan options available for all areas.

iii) InCred will process loans only for those courses/institutes which have required approvals, authorizations or accreditation from relevant bodies.

i)Currently, we are present in Mumbai, Surat, Bangalore, Delhi NCR, Pune, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chennai.

ii) If you don’t reside in one of these cities, you are still eligible to apply. Certain additional terms or conditions may be required to be met by such applicants.

Yes! You can apply as soon as you receive your standardized test score. If you are not going to take a standardized test, or want to apply prior to that for some reason, then you can start your loan application when you are in the process of short-listing or applying to your universities/colleges.

In such cases where you change or drop your educational plans for unforeseen reasons, InCred will recall or cancel your loan application. Your application will then be kept dormant for a period of 30 days from the day of loan recall/cancellation during which you can reactivate your loan account. After the 30 day period, your loan application will be permanently closed. If you chose to re-apply at later date, you will need to start a fresh application and documentation process.

Students who are currently attending an eligible course can apply as well. They can either seek a loan for the course they are currently attending or for a subsequent course.

Yes, you can apply as long as you meet the other eligibility norms.

You will need to fill an application form to start the application process. You will also need to submit all supporting documents to InCred. If you wish to hand over documents to InCred, you can request a pick-up or fill the attached form and upload your docs.
https://form.jotform.me/elhub/el-customer-application-form

You can apply at any point during your admissions process. You can apply to us as soon as you have received your standardized test score or when you have started your application process for admissions. You can apply later as well after receiving admission.

i) Know-Your-Customer (KYC),

• Past academic Record, upto the most recent degree
• Financial documents - Last 3 year ITS/Form 16
• If employed, details of employment
• Passport Size photograph
• If applicable, documents related to the collateral security will also be required.

You can refer to our checklist of the documents at the end of the application form: https://www.incred.com/education-loan-dcouments/InCred-education-loan-application-form.pdf

No. There are no upfront fees or charges to apply. Once your loan is provisionally approved, you are required to pay a loan processing/administration fee which is typically set at around 1% - 1.5% of your loan amount.

Once you have completely filled and submitted the loan application form and all supporting documents, it will generally take approx 5 working days for us to process your application in full.

Though we endeavour to make the application process as streamlined and seamless as possible, depending on the circumstances of your case, you may be required to provide additional information after your initial application and submission of documents.

As a part of the loan process, InCred will verify certain information including, but not limited to, the student and co-borrower’s addresses, employment, etc. Hence, we require all our applicants to give consent for us to physically verify all such information.

InCred education loan leverages on educational and financial data analytics and predictive modeling driven by cutting edge technology to arrive at fully customized loan options for students. A trajectory of the potential income of the student after completing the course is charted that, in conjunction with historical data such as the student’s past academic and career records, co-borrower’s credit worthiness, etc. portrays an accurate understanding of the risk involved in the case. This typically implies that the possibility of loan approval and more favorable terms are better if the student and/or the course are better.

i) The co-borrower is the co-obligor to the loan. Typically, this is an income earning family member who is willing and qualified to take up the repayment of the loan in case the student (applicant) is unable to repay the loan.

ii) InCred’s fully customized products and processes make it possible for us to uniquely understand every case and, in turn, offer various flexibilities related to the fulfillment of conditions, including the co-borrower.

iii) Either or both parents of the student are generally required to co-sign the loan. In certain circumstances, another family member such as a sibling or spouse or even blood relations may join the loan as co-borrowers. InCred can accept multiple co-borrowers scattered over multiple locations. The co-borrower should typically have an operative Indian rupee denominated bank account in India with cheque writing facilities.

The absolute maximum amount that you can borrow is the entire cost of attendance as certified by your school for all years of your course. However, if you are in receipt of a scholarship, grant, fellowship, assistantship or any other form of funding from your university or institute, you will need to deduct that amount from your InCred loan amount.

Yes, the entire cost of attendance (COA) as certified by your school can be lent by us provided your application meets all loan parameters and requirements. The COA includes the tuition for your course, associated fees, housing, meals, books and laptop, travel, insurance and incidentals.

InCred education loan interest rates are completely risk-graded against your scholastic performance and future potential to repay the loan. Additionally, the interest rate may be impacted by various other factors including credit histories, employment records, securities provided for the loan, etc.

i) Yes, you can be eligible for a better rate! The initial quote or offer you get from InCred is a range indicating the interest rates where most applications similar to yours were priced. However, depending on your case specifics, you may be able to qualify for a better rate. Once you fill in your loan application and it is processed by InCred, you will know your final rate.

ii) In case you get loan approval from InCred before admission to a course, we very strongly recommend that you contact us once you are admitted and update your course/university information to see if you qualify for a better rate.

i) A collateral security or simply a collateral or security is a guarantee for the loan. Typically, collateral is a property or a fixed deposit which is mortgaged with the lender until the loan is repaid completely. If you and your co-borrowers fail to repay the loan on time, the lender will have recourse to liquidating the security to recover the loan funds.

ii) InCred provides loans that may or may not require collateral.

If you provide collateral for an InCred education loan, then you may typically get a better rate. Also, you may qualify for a higher loan amount as well as improve your chances of loan approval in certain cases.

The collateral requirement is optional depending on the type of loan product you qualify for. However, providing collateral can bring you certain benefits as described above in section 3.8. A collateral security whose value is lesser than the loan amount you are requesting or multiple collaterals may also be acceptable in certain cases.

The interest rates at InCred are floating or variable interest rates. This means that your interest rates may fluctuate upwards or downwards during the tenure of your loan depending on factors such as market conditions and regulatory measures.

i) InCred provides various options for you or your co-borrower to repay the loan that are customized to your individual case. All loan repayments are executed by electronically deducting the co-borrower’s bank account on a monthly basis. InCred allows a total of 5-12 years (max 15 yrs) to repay your education loan.

ii) For graduate school or Masters’ loans, the loan repayment in equated monthly instalments (EMI) commence at the end of a maximum period of 36 months from the initial loan disbursement date. The first 36 months is the “in-school” period including a “grace” period during which the student is expected to complete studies and find employment. During the first 36 months max, either the interest component of the loan or a part thereof needs to be repaid by the co-borrowers on a monthly basis. Please do know that the paying a higher amount during the in-school period may qualify you for a better rate.

iii) For courses at the undergraduate level, the equated monthly installments generally commence from the date of first disbursement and continue for the entirety of the repayment cycle.

Absolutely! If your circumstances change favorably where you are able to start repaying the EMI earlier than scheduled, you can do so by sending us a request for change of debit instruction. Please be aware that once you have started your EMI repayments, you may not switch back to interest-only payments.

You are allowed to foreclose your InCred education loan at any point without having to pay any additional penalties or charges. You are also allowed to make part pre-payments or bulk payments thereby bringing down the balance on your loan account. There are no penalties or charges applicable towards such pre-payments.

Yes, you can transfer your existing education loan from another lender to InCred and in doing so you may end up saving substantially and/or bring down your monthly installment amounts. You may even request a top-up loan over your transferred loan amount provided you are still pursuing the concerned course and your official Cost of Attendance justifies such a requirement.

InCred will charge you a loan process and administration fee which is generally set at around 1% - 1.5% of the loan amount. This is not an upfront fee and is payable only upon provisional loan approval. This fee typically represents the cost of originating your loan as well as various expenses associated with verifications, documentation, legal opinions, etc. related to the loan evaluation process.

InCred will look into and analyze the credit histories of all parties to the loan including the student and the co-borrowers. Once you formally apply for the loan by submitting the completed loan application and providing all supporting documents, InCred will pull your credit-bureau report.

You can certainly apply for an InCred education loan even if you think you don’t have a spectacular credit history. While credit history analysis is a critical step of the loan evaluation process, InCred strives to reach a holistic understanding of the risk in the case by looking at a host of factors including credit reports. If your credit history reflects major delinquencies in loan repayments in the past or portrays repetitive delinquent behavior, then your loan request may not get processed. Or, you may have to provide additional information or meet additional conditions depending on the severity of the issues in your credit history.

i) Generally, unless and until there are substantial changes in your loan application including the course of study, co-borrower, collateral security, etc., the possibility of overturning a loan decision is unfortunately slim. In certain extenuating situations and depending on individual circumstances, you may be able to appeal your loan decision.

ii) I/my co-borrower have existing loans. Will that affect your decision to give me a loan?

iii) Existing loans that you or your co-borrowers have may not necessarily form a hindrance to your loan application and decision. InCred will obviously ensure that the existing obligations continue to be comfortably fulfilled by the customer in addition to any line of credit that he/she avails from InCred.

iv) Having existing loans that are being repaid on time will most likely improve the credit score of the student/co-borrower and may subsequently bolster chances of loan approval from InCred. On the other hand, if the repayments on existing loans have been erratic, then that may adversely affect the possibility of loan approval.

v) If you are a student with a current loan obligation and you want to pursue a full-time course without paying off or closing the obligation, then you must justify how you wish to ensure that obligation is fulfilled while you attend a course.

i) InCred provides Indian Rupee denominated education loans which are disbursed into an agreed upon operative bank account in India belonging to the co-borrower. The loan funds are then converted into the exact foreign currency by an InCred appointed foreign exchange vendor and wire transferred to the university.

ii) All course or school related charges and payments are necessarily wired to the university through international fund transfers. The university will typically generate an invoice of all such billable charges which the student needs to provide to us before disbursement.

iii) The loan can be disbursed in installments on a semester-basis as and when required by your university.

i) Once your loan is approved, a few formalities and processes including the execution of the loan agreement need to be completed. Once all formalities and documentation etc. is completed, InCred will take approx 5 days to disburse your loan.

ii) Please bear in mind that the conversion of loan funds into foreign exchange and subsequent international transfer to your university account may again require anywhere between 3-5 days. Hence, it is strongly suggested that you start your loan disbursement processing at least 12-14 days prior to your fee payment date.

For students residing on-campus, funds for living expenses and meals will be transferred to your university account. If you select to stay off-campus, we will either load the appropriate amount on your international forex card or transfer the amount to your foreign bank account. Generally, the living expenses are also disbursed in semester-wise installments.

You will typically need to fill a small form/send an email requesting disbursement, sign the loan agreement and provide all supporting documents including post dated cheques, the “Fee Statement” or “Invoice” generated by your university or institute, etc.

i) Once you have availed your first loan disbursement from InCred and are enrolled in the course, the process for subsequent loan disbursements is easy. You will simply be required to send an email to InCred to request the next disbursement by attaching a copy of the university/college generated payment invoice. Please ensure that you start this process at least 10-12 days prior to your fee payment date. Your request will get processed subject to your loan account having sufficient balance.

You may be allowed to request a top-up loan or an enhancement in the loan amount approved to you provided the official university/college issued cost of attendance justifies the top-up request. You may also be required to provide additional information or documentation. We strongly suggest that you calculate your funding requirement and funds sources/amounts carefully at the time of loan application and expend your approved loan amount as per those calculations so as to avoid complications at a later stage.

i) The education loan model at InCred has been a result of strong factors coming together to develop something that the Indian student community truly deserves–the collective experiences of people who have benefited from or been a part of the education loan movement, technological advances in gathering and precisely analyzing data, expertise from the best in lending and educational sectors from around the globe and a penchant to deliver justified, conscious and educated decisions to deserving students.

ii) As such, the loan application, evaluation and delivery is based largely keeping in mind the student and his/her needs and the entire process gets customized to individual courses, universities, countries, backgrounds and requirements. InCred aims at seamlessly weaving the education loan process with your admissions process—we understand how challenging the higher education admissions process is for students and families. Being a hindrance or adding to the challenge is what we simply don’t want to do.

You are allowed to borrow up to the total cost of attendance for your course. However, we suggest you be financially responsible and explore if you are able to secure any scholarship or any form of grants from your institute. If you are able to, then you will be able to lower your loan requirement.

Once you take a loan disbursement from InCred, you will be eligible to take advantage of a host of benefits ranging from discounts on air tickets, books, clothes, insurance, Forex Cards, etc.

Yes, InCred provides a Tax certificate to the co-borrower who can present the certificate while filing the annual tax return to avail the benefits.