How RandScout is paid

The short version

When you open a provider’s offer from this site, that provider — or the affiliate network that represents it — pays us. Sometimes for the click, more often only if you go on to take out a loan. We are paid the same way whether the loan works out well for you or not, which is exactly why the rest of this page exists.

Loan-matching services

Below the lenders, and on their own when no lender takes your answers, we may show loan-matching services. They are not lenders: you fill in one application on their site and they pass it to the lenders they work with. Each card says so. They pay us when you send them an application, and the lender you end up with is regulated in the same way as the lenders we show directly.

What it changes, and what it does not

Which providers you see starts with your answers and the rules each provider sets about who it will lend to: a provider is never shown to someone its own rules exclude, however much it pays.

The order is ours. We give each provider a priority, and when two providers have the same priority, the one that has earned us more per visit recently comes first. So what a provider pays us can affect where it appears and whether it is among the few offers we show. The first offer is not necessarily the cheapest: compare the total cost on each quote. How we compare sets out the whole method.

We do show fewer offers rather than more. Most comparison sites list everything and let you sort it out. We filter out the providers whose own rules exclude you, because sending you to an application that will be declined costs you an entry on your credit record and gains you nothing.

What we do not do

• We do not lend money and we are not a credit provider.
• We take no part in the decision. The provider decides, using its own criteria.
• We never charge you a fee, and no registered provider charges an upfront fee either.
• We do not sell your answers to anyone.

Which providers we list

Only providers registered with the National Credit Regulator. Every offer on this site shows the provider’s NCR registration number. Where the provider has given us its maximum annual interest rate and a representative example of what a loan costs, the offer shows them too. Where it has not, the offer shows no rate at all, the provider shows its full cost before you sign, and the page lists the legal limits on interest and fees. A provider without an NCR registration number is not listed.

If you think something is wrong here

Tell us. If an offer on this site is out of date, or a provider behaved differently from what we described, we want to know — the contact page has the address. You can also check any provider yourself on the NCR register.