Our Responsible Lending Principles for Education Financing
Have you noticed that there's been a lot of scrutiny surrounding the student loan industry lately? We certainly have—and as a result, Wells Fargo decided it was time to make our student loan business policies public. Earlier this week, on May 29, we announced our Responsible Lending Principles and Marketing Practices for Education Financing.
What do we mean by these principles and practices, exactly? Well, essentially it's our commitment to our customers—both our borrowers and our schools.
As part of our own lending principles for borrowers, Wells Fargo will:
- Promote responsible borrowing by encouraging students to consider all education financing options available to them and borrow only what they need.
- Offer attractive financing solutions, which include competitive interest rates and other incentives.
- Provide consumers with full disclosures about loan options and costs on our website.
- Provide superior customer service to students and families.
- Use our best efforts to ensure that borrower benefits offered during loan origination continue even if the loan is transferred, purchased, sold, or the servicer is changed.
- Disclose to a borrower any agreement to sell a loan if Wells Fargo will no longer service the loan. Wells Fargo wants to establish long-term relationships with our customers and has only rarely sold its loans in the past.
I know it probably goes without saying, but we're very proud of our record of following responsible business practices and our history of providing high-quality educational loan products and customer service to the schools, students and families we serve.
We welcome the recent changes in the student lending industry because we believe it's important that all lenders follow the same set of rules.
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Comments (6)
Found in Financial education, Lenders, Paying, Post-college, Preparing, Private loans, Student loans, Wells Fargo Bank
Comments
I'm very confused that you have this article listed here, after my experience with Wells Fargo today ...
Prior to applying for a student consolidation loan we called the 800 number to verify the online application process. We were told that the student has to submit info first and then the application would ask for the cosigner info.
This didnt happen. We were misled into completing an application that did not have any possibility of being approved.
The CS agent we spoke with would only give his name as Frank and hung up the phone before this was rectified. I sincerely hope that this is not representive of all of Wells Fargo customer service representatives .
There was nothing that Frank said to try to diffuse this problem. Instead he only created increased frustration and agitation.
This is certainly not in line with the Principles you've outlined above.
Posted by: Carol | June 1, 2007 02:25 PM
hi stacy my name is kathyband i;d liketo learn more about your student loans. how do i do so?
Posted by: Anonymous | June 2, 2007 07:09 PM
is applying for a loan hard?
Posted by: Erica | June 4, 2007 01:14 PM
Hi Carol,
Thanks for sharing your situation. I'm sorry that you had a negative experience with one of our phone representatives--I appreciate your being so candid about it here on the blog. Feedback like yours helps us identify hiccups and make improvements.
I received your additional information in email via the feedback tool. I've been in touch with our Contact Center, and Frank's manager is going to respond to you directly.
Posted by: Staci Schiller | June 4, 2007 01:15 PM
To Maria: We can't publish your comment because it included your first and last name, which is against our comment guidelines. Please feel free to ask your question again using only your first name, or send me an email via the feedback tool. Thanks!
Posted by: Staci Schiller | June 4, 2007 01:25 PM
Kathy and Erica,
Thought I'd respond to both of you in one comment since your questions are similar!
A great resource to learn more about student loans and the application process is our web site, wellsfargo.com/student. There's a section called "Student Loans Step by Step," which provides an overview of the different loans available and the application process for each. It's not hard to apply, but it can be time-consuming, so I'd suggest you have all your information ready before you start the process.
Hope that helps! What other questions can I answer for you?
Posted by: Staci Schiller | June 4, 2007 03:48 PM