Interest free graduate loan from Natwest

born_again_saver

I finally managed to finally get my £2,000 overdraft paid off in June of this year, exactly three years after I graduated. Hooray!

I spent the first year after graduation struggling on a relatively low income, constantly deep (for me) in the red. It was hard to motivate myself to save in this position, and I didn't manage to save anything during that first year, and I started to worry as the interest free amount of overdraft was about to drop - leaving me facing interest payments.

Then I found out that Natwest have a little publicised offer for graduates. You can get an interest free loan of up to £2k to pay off your overdraft with them. The catch is that you lose the interest free overdraft altogether, so it basically forces you to stay in the black. And you are tied into monthly loan repayments, of course. And the loan has to finish within three years of your graduation. But I found it to be a great arrangement, as it seemed easier to make myself stay in the black with no deep overdraft to keep dipping into. I just hate being overdrawn! Even if the loan meant I was still in debt, at least I was making regular payments.

The other catch was that it was quite difficult to pin Natwest down to actually setting up the loan for me - tried several branches, and the call centre, all to no avail - nobody had heard of it! Eventually after weeks of trying, I was put in touch with a student banking person from a branch in another town, who was familiar with what to do and got it all set up. My repayments were around £93 per month for something like 21 months, which was manageable for me.

If you've just graduated and are wondering how on earth you're gonna pay that overdraft and you have a steady income, it may be worth looking into. If you can bear to stick with Natwest that is (I'm closing my accounts with them now!)

Edit - here's the link for the info http://www.natwest.com/personal02a.asp?id=PERSONAL/DAY_TO_DAY/STUDENT_GRADUATE/GRADUATE_BANKING/GRADUATE_INTEREST_FREE_LOAN

seaweasel

RBS offer it too (well, Natwest is RBS). My bank manager offered it to me when I graduated but I wanted to wait until I had a proper job. Still waiting but I might use it at some point.