Loan eligibility check form

Loan applicants want to know if they're eligible for a loan before they go through all the hurdles of completing the full loan application.

Lenders need to collect certain information from borrowers to let them know if they're eligible.

But applicants want to share that information at their convenience and without the need to talk to humans.

How can we enable applicants to do that?

Loan eligibility check form

Obviously, the most straightforward way will be a digital form.

The form shows exactly what information is needed, and applicants can access it anytime from their home without talking to humans.

Below, I'll share the loan eligibility check form we recently designed.

Loan eligibility check form requirements

What defines the design of the form?

The data that lenders need to collect to check eligibility.

And what data do lenders need to know to check eligibility?

It depends on the lending vertical.

We design forms for consumer cash-flow lenders, so other than data from the credit report, lenders need data about:

• Applicant: Who they are, e.g. first name, last name, dob, etc

• Applicant Current Residency: Where they live and on what terms

• Applicant Previous Residency: Where they used to live (if current residency is less than 1 year)

• Applicant Employment → Where do they work

• Applicant Income → How much income do they get

• Applicant Outgoings → How much do they spend

Loan eligibility check form design

Here's a wireframe of the loan eligibility form and more context behind each element:

Form steps

The form is split into multiple steps based on the entities.

Each entity has its own screen:

• Applicant

• Applicant Current Residency

• Applicant Previous Residency

• Applicant Employment

• Applicant Income

• Applicant Outgoings

"Applicant Previous Residency" is optional. Applicants will only see it if they have lived at the current address for less than a year.

The goal is to collect all the data needed for the eligibility check.

Form summary

After all the steps in the form, the applicant sees a summary of their answers.

The problem with multi-steps is that by the time you get to the last step, you don't remember what's answered in the 1st step.

Without a summary screen, it would be hard for applicants to review their answers.

Without reviewing their answers, they won't have as much confidence to submit a form that shows everything is accurate.

So, the screen's purpose is to enable applicants to review their answers without going back through the steps.

Form step header

On each step of the form, the applicant sees 3 elements in the header:

• Step name

• Progress bar

• Back button

It's a lot harder to keep going forward when you don't know:

• Where am I right now?

• How much is left?

• How do I get back?

The goal of these 3 elements is to answer these questions.

When you have a finish-line insight and know you can always get back, you have more confidence to go forward.

Form step button

Each form step has a button.

Besides an obvious reason for a button to get to the next step, it also plays an important role in form persistence.

When the applicant clicks on it, the client requests the service to save the data.

Once successful, it redirects the applicant to the next step.

In the last step, the button requests the service to mark the form as submitted and get into processing.

Why not a single-step form?

It's not unusual to see loan eligibility check forms that collect all the data in one go.

It has its own pros and cons.

Here's the reasoning behind my preference for multi-step form design.

Perceived effort

Long forms look intimidating.

Splitting into multiple steps makes the perceived effort of 1st step easier.

So it's easier to start.

Once started, the applicant already has the momentum to keep going.

Anonymous user identification

With the single-step form, you get the data only when and IF the applicant submits the whole form.

In multi-step forms, you can collect identifiable details early, so we have ways to follow up even if the form is not completed.

Form state persistence

Also, it's easier from an engineering perspective to implement server-side form-state persistence since we have a trigger when the loan step is completed.