FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

• You are between 18 and 68 years old
• You are of Swiss nationality
• Or you are in possession of a:
  • C, B or L residence permit
  • G residence permit (cross-border permit) valid since 3 years
  • Legitimation card

If you meet these criteria, you are then eligible for a personal loan in Switzerland.

Some blog articles on the subject :

• How to obtain a personal loan in Switzerland as a cross-boarder worker?
• Personal loans for foreigners holding C, B or L residence permits. What are the conditions?

In Switzerland, the following conditions lead to automatic refusal:

• You are unemployed
• You benefit from health or accident related insurance allowances
• You are being prosecuted for unpaid bills
• Acts of defects of property

If you meet one of these criteria, you will not be allowed to have a loan. You must first improve your solvability. Our debt clearing department can help you with this.

Some blog articles :

• Loan refusal. What can I do?
• The main causes leading to loan request refusals.

Banks establish a scoring. It is a notation based on the history of your payments, loans, old and new, credit card history etc. This leads to either negative or positive scores. Other information is also included and depends from bank to bank.

Once the scoring is established, the bank calculates your budget. Your budget is based on your family income, monthly commitments and expenses (ongoing loans, credit cards, rent, child care costs etc.) The positive spread between your income and your expenditures (your budget) determines the maximum amount you are allowed to borrow.

Milenia has long standing experience within the banking sector and can handle to your loan request directly in your name. This will increase your chances for loan approvals.

Scoring can be compared to the meaning of « customer quality ratio ». In order to assess this, banks go over your loan payment history, car leasing, credit card history etc. Banks will analyse invoice payments by using databases such as CRIF for example. Banks will also take into account previous loan refusals saved in the loans central databank. That is why it is important to apply to a bank which most suits your personal situation.

Scoring will mainly determine the rate applied to the loan granted. The higher your scoring, the lower your rate. Milenia can help you with your scoring. We choose the best suited bank and aim for the loan offers which have the best rate-quality ratio.

Once your request has been made through our website (link on form), our advisors reach out to you to understand your expectations for your project (length, precise amount, rates etc.)

Milenia then calculates your budget based on the documents handed over. This can vary from bank to bank as they don’t all apply the same calculation methods (variations appear in average transport costs, minimum rental amount, health insurance evaluation based on the type of services). Once the budget is set, Milenia will check your scoring based on the selected bank and the loan request. We take the necessary steps to ensure you have the highest possible rate of success.

We then move on to preparing your application and send it to the bank. We will have advised you on the choice of bank so as to avoid a refusal being added to the ZEK centralised loan request databank.

It takes up to 48 hours for the bank to communicate its decision. Upon approval, the contract is sent to you via email, post or both.

A refusal can be spurred by a late payment or old data linked to solvability which still appears under your name. Our debt clearing department can, upon your agreement, «clean» these no longer pertinent lingering information from the database so that you have a high rate of success with your application.

ZEK codes are payment « annotations » relating to your loans, leasings, both old and new. They define your « payment quality » which, in turn, influences your scoring.

Some ZEK codes:

• 02 Regular payment of your loan. Reimbursements on time or in advance.
• 03 Delay in the payment of monthly installments.
• 04 Payments not respected. Restructuring of payments being discussed.
• 05 Loan payment stopped. Contracts has not been reimbursed.
• 09 Fraud. Falsified data.

Codes 05 and 09 block future loan requests.

Yes your age influences your scoring. Up to 25, the client is considered as young and that makes loan application approvals harder. Scoring is stricter for younger people who have a job in order to avoid them raking up debt. Any application must be well prepared before making the application to a bank.

The age is a systematic refusal criteria for people under 18 and for people who are retired (exceptions made for people up to 70 years of age in some cases).

If the amounts related to the prosecutions have been paid in full and the cases closed, a loan can be granted. It is nonetheless paramount to prepare your request well to ensure that all risks are avoided. Milenia can analyse your file and make sure it meets the bank’s requirements in order to maximise your chances.

If your cases are still open, the loan request must be put on hold. A refusal would appear in the database used by all banks in Switzerland. Cases must be dealt with first before making a loan request in the future.

Once cases are closed, Milenia can also support you in clearing any outstanding debt. A clean-up of your history in the CRIF database and updating your solvability status is advised.

Yes. In Switzerland, it is possible to get a personal loan if you are the beneficiary of AVS or AI allowances. As you no longer have a work contract, the bank will only base itself on your allowance certificates and establish your budget based on these documents (bank statements are valid also).

If you have a C permit, regulations applied are the same as if you were Swiss. You can freely apply for a loan.

If you have a B permit, you can apply for a personal loan. You must however be a resident of Switzerland for at least 1 year (6 months in some cases). Once this period is passed, regulations applied are the same as if you were Swiss.

Do you live in France but work in Switzerland? Do you hold a G permit?

In both cases, you can apply for a personal loan. However, the paperwork is heavier (utilities invoices, French and Swiss bank statements etc.) It is also mandatory not be blacklisted at the Banque de France. A certificate to free up the funds will be asked of you.

If you hold a G permit, its validity must be at least 3 years before you make the loan application.

Some blog articles :

• Procedure and documents needed by a cross-border worker to apply for a loan?

If you work in Switzerland and hold a legitimation card (CERN, Consular activities, Non governmental, Non-profit etc.) you may apply for a personal loan. The bank will often request a certificate attesting to your income as well as bank statements relating to your salary (salary slips are sometimes not provided by such institutions). Other than these requests, the conditions are the same as if you were Swiss.

To apply for a personal loan in Switzerland, you should, in principle, be in possession of a work contract. However, it is possible for an independent worker to apply for a loan. Either as a contracted worker for your own company or as an independent. To evaluate your budget, the bank will base its analysis on your latest tax assessment as replacement for salary slips.

Should you lose your job, monthly loan installments can become an issue. Milenia offers two solutions to protect your interests:

1. Add an insurance clause to your loan contract to cover your installments. This insurance (PPI) is linked to your loan and covers the exact monthly installment amount. In case of redundancy, your monthly installments are covered by your insurer for the duration of your redundancy period.
2. Subscribe to a complementary insurance policy which covers you in case of unemployment. More economical, this type of insurance offers the added advantage of not being linked only to your loan. Each month, you are entitled to the amount defined in your policy. This allows you to cover your loan as well as other expenditures.

All unemployment insurance coverage details are here.