Prepayment is a process where the borrower decides to pay his loan partially in maximum amount before the loan closure period. HDFC Bank allows you for the partial payment of a personal loan if you have taken HDFC Bank Personal Loan, on or after 1st of April 2018.
The way part payment works is it knocks down the unpaid principal amount, which in turn reduces the EMIs and the total interest amount. But while prepaying a loan comes with a lot of benefits, it also comes with prepayment penalty. Therefore, it is advisable that you should find out with your lender what is the penalty for pre-closing your loan. If the penalty is lower than the interest amount to be paid by the borrower, then it makes sense to go ahead with this option. In case the penalty is higher than the loan interest amount, you will end up paying a greater amount instead of saving your money.
Prepayment penalties vary from one financial institution to another, and often, even from loan to loan. So make sure you analyse this condition and make a decision.
Other criteria that you need to consider to be eligible for making part payments are as follows:
· You should be a salaried individual
· You should have completed 1 year of paying your loan instalment, i.e. completed 12 EMIs
During the tenure of the loan, you can make a maximum of two part payments, wherein the two payments should not fall within the same financial year. Also, no part payment should exceed 25% of the outstanding principal amount.
The pre-payment charges for salaried applicants are as follows:
- You must pay 4% of the outstanding principal amount for 13 to 24 months
- You must pay 3% of the outstanding principal amount for 25 to 36 months
- You must pay 2% of the outstanding principal amount for more than 36 months