Loans Vancouver is a free loan connection service for people who live or work in Vancouver and across Metro Vancouver, from Kitsilano and the West End out to Burnaby, Richmond, Surrey and the North Shore. The site explains how payday and installment loans work under British Columbia law, what lenders look for on a Vancouver paycheque, and which BC rules protect you after you sign. It is not a lender and it never charges you.
What this site is
This site is a plain language guide to the two loans a Vancouver borrower is usually offered online, with an apply link to licensed lenders. A payday loan runs from $100 to $1500, costs at most $14 per $100 borrowed and comes out of the next paycheque. An installment loan runs from $500 to $10000 over 3 to 60 months at 18% to 35% APR. In both cases the lender shows its own figures, the total and the dates before you sign.
The two sit side by side because rent sets the size of most gaps in this city. A short month after a cancelled shift at the terminals fits a payday loan; a damage deposit on a new place off Commercial Drive usually needs months to repay. Longshore rotations, film work paid show by show and biweekly hospital payroll each change which loan fits, so the pages carry that detail.
How we earn money
A lender pays us a referral fee when a loan funds, and that fee is the only money the site makes. It comes out of the lender's marketing budget. It does not raise your fee, your APR or your payments, and a declined or cancelled application costs nobody anything.
Being paid only on funded loans gives us one reason to care about the outcome: an approval you can repay, which is often a smaller loan than the one on offer. The referral disclosure sets out the arrangement in full.
Who runs it
An independent Canadian publisher runs this site as one of a small number of local loan guides, one per city. The people who write and check the pages are not lenders, brokers or financial advisers. We work from the Business Practices and Consumer Protection Act, the Payday Loans Regulation, the guidance Consumer Protection BC publishes, the federal Criminal Interest Rate Regulations and sample lender agreements. You will find no reviews, testimonials or star ratings here.
What we hold ourselves to
Each page is checked against this list before it goes live and again whenever a rule changes.
- Figures follow current law: the $14 per $100 federal cap on the payday fee, the $1500 and 62 day limits on a BC payday loan, and the 35% federal ceiling on installment lending. The lender's disclosure is always the number you sign.
- Approval is described as income based and is never promised. A lender cannot say it will lend before it has seen your deposits, and neither can we.
- BC protections are stated as written: a Consumer Protection BC licence for every payday lender, a loan no larger than half of your net pay in the term, cancellation at no cost up to the end of the second day the lender is open for business after the first advance, no rollovers, an instalment plan over at least three pay periods on a third loan within 62 days, and an age of majority of 19.
- Vancouver is described as it is: high rents, a commute on SkyTrain, the SeaBus and the bridges, and winter rain that slows outdoor work. A payday loan costs the same by law in Marpole as in Yaletown.
- Pages link to the regulator or the regulation so you can check our work, and the "last updated" date moves when a figure does.
What we are not
We are not a lender, and we hold no payday lender licence because we do not lend. Nothing on this site asks for your banking details, identification or income. The application behind the apply button runs on a separate lending platform, and the lenders on it hold the BC licences. You can check a lender with Consumer Protection BC before you sign anything.
There is no office to visit, on Hastings or anywhere else in the city; everything happens online, from a phone on the Expo Line or a laptop at the kitchen table. The contact page explains how to reach us, how applying works walks through the four steps, and the FAQ covers the rest.
Loan options in Vancouver
One page per product: who qualifies, how fast it funds and what to check before you sign.
