Personal loans are loans which you can use for any personal purpose. The good thing with personal loans is that they are available to everyone. Secondly, you can use personal loans for whatever purpose you can think of.

For the newly initiated in the loan market, personal loans are of mainly two types:

1. Secured Loans: These loans require pledging your property as security. This gives the lender the assurance that their money is in safe hands, which will earn them good interest upon repayment. With this assurance, the lender relaxes the term and conditions of repayment and even the rate of interest.
   
   
2. Unsecured Loans: These loans are good for those who do not wish to take the risk of placing property as collateral, and also if the loan amount you require is not very high. This is so because lenders keep the unsecured loan amount lower than in the case of secured loans. The repayment loans are also not as flexible. After all, it is the lender who is at a risk when lending an unsecured loan. The only recourse a lender has in the event of inability of the borrower to repay the loan amount is to go to the court, whereby the court can issue a 'charging order' against the errant borrower.

There are as many kinds of unsecured loans in the market as there are lenders. However, the borrowers would be well-advised to compare loans carefully, taking their time to think over the best deal they can get.

Personal loans are widely available online these days which saves a lot of your time since registration is hassle-free and time-saving. Generally online personal loans are available in the unsecured personal loan format. This is because a lot of time and paperwork is dispensed with, in the case of unsecured personal loans.

Leaving aside those who have severe credit problems, the criteria for getting a loan approved are simple:

1. You have to be a legal resident of the UK
   
2. You should be above 18 years of age
   
3. You should have a house registered in your name, in case of secured loans
   
4. You have to produce documents certifying your sources of income, in case of unsecured loans

Different lenders may ask for different documents, but the above-mentioned are the ones generally required by most lenders.