Sainsburys - has anyone got the advertised rate?

I know the rules state that at least 51% of people have to be offered the advertised rate for a lender to quote it as their 'rate'. I would have hoped that I would be in the 51% when I applied to Sainsburys but was surprised to be offered 9.2%.

I didn't want to pay that so took a risk and applied to Santander, my own bank, where I have been accepted at 3.9% .

Looking on here, I see that lots of people have also been given a higher rate so I am now wondering exactly what type of borrower qualifies for Sainsbury's best rate?

On another thread, someone else gave a list of what might affect the rate and I've put my circumstances, which I would think demonstrates that I'm a good risk, but apparently not?

Affordability - good - at least ?1k disposable income per month after bills. I have over ?30k in savings and wanted to borrow an extra ?10k to pay for a big extension

Income ?40k, been in same job for over 20 years.

Electoral roll - yes

Address mobility - lived at this address for nearly 10 years

Credit history - 100% paid on time. I suppose one downside is that all my savings are in 4 high interest current accounts, opened about a year ago. I also have a Halifax Clarity card so take cash out on this overseas only (paid off in full straight away to minimise interest)

Available credit - 2 credit cards with total ?4.5k limit - average spend ?1k per month. Paid off in full every month

Debt to credit ratio - see above

Credit to income ratio - I also have a car on finance and the loan, plus the car finance plus the credit limit on my cards is probably about 50% of my income - this is the only negative point I can think of?

Financial associates - yes - I but applied for a loan in my own name. My partner also has a perfect credit history and only has the mortgage, current account (no overdraft) and a mobile phone in his name. Doesn't have his own credit card. Maybe this could be a negative point, but that really is stretching it.

Specific lender criteria - who knows?

I personally think that Sainsbury's have been harsh in offering a rate that is so much above their typical rate, but their loss, I will be borrowing from Santander instead and saving hundreds of pounds over the term of the loan.

No one will know what their criteria are. It's their money that they're lending so they make up the rules as to who they will lend to.

Your bank knows your financial sutuation much better than any other lender, so that's probably why you got a great rate from them.

I wouldn't worry about it. I've been rejected for a CC in the past despite there being nothing out of the ordinary. Applied elsewhere a couple of days later and got a 5 figure limit with a fantastic rate (not that I pay interest on CC's!)

Hi All,

I just got accepted (have got the paperwork all I need to do is sign). Rate was 3.7% but can be improved if I found a cheaper deal as part of their Price Promise deal. However I have been working hard to clear all my debts and feel that I would like to try and save instead. I think what helped is that I regularly shop at Sainsburys and have their credit card and also have a Nectar card that I have used for a long time.

I'll tell you what i think may have happened with sainsburys given the huge number of posts from financially savvy people who weren't offered the headline rate with apparently ideal credit histories.

1. You have to bear in mind that for quite some time they were the offering the lowest rate on the market. (and certainly one of the most heavily promoted) I am fairly sure that this led to huge demand as they came top of nearly every best buy table.
2. They allocated a huge tranche of money for personal loans lets say ?200m
3. They almost have to give many of the early applicants the headline rate, because the sooner they get to the 51% the sooner they can crank up the interest rate for everyone else and if they need to change the offer because rates go up or down, they need to be able to show that they met the 51% threshold before they can change the deal. Otherwise they risk being left with an uncompetitive deal.
4. Once they reach the 51% It makes no sense whatsoever to lend out even ?1 of the remaining 49% at the headline rate or anything even close to it. It is this 49% that makes them the money. I suspect that even if Martin Lewis applied he wouldn't get the headline rate in this scenario. Given the amount it costs to tun the organisation, advertise, borrow the money in the first place, account for bad debt etc its going to pretty difficult to turn a decent profit lending on 3.4%

Hence why we have a stream of these posts about not qualifying for the headline rate. It may be nothing whatsoever to do with your credit history, just simply a question of bad timing.

(i could be completely off the mark with this. I have nothing to back it up with, its simply my theory.)
?1000 Emergency fund No87 ?400/1000

I would pretty much agree with Andy's ideas as above.

Also, it could be that as you have a good credit history you don't fit their customer profile and they want to make a profit out of you so have offered you the higher rate.

As an example and from my experience this year, I held ?10k in my Halifax bank account for a few months and out of curiosity went on their loan application/checker part of the online banking. The so-called 'Clarity' loan is supposed to offer a headline rate of 3.9% so I played around with the figures of ?10k over 5 years and the rate offered showed as 19.9%. Tried again 2 months later when I was down to ?7k in my account, the rate went down to 17.9%. Moved the remaining balance over to Santander account so balance had been a nominal ?10 in the Halifax account for a month, tried the loan checker again and this time the rate was the headline rate offered of 3.9%. Go figure!