 TITLE: Growth of Personal Loan Debt Slows Amid Pandemic CONTENT: How Did COVID-19 Impact Personal Loans in 2020?\n-----------------------------------------------\nThe COVID-19 pandemic has clearly impacted the way consumers interact with personal loans, both negatively and positively. Borrowers still seem to be turning to these lump-sum payment options, but overall debt is growing at half the rate it did in past years.\nTo understand more about how COVID-19 impacted consumers' decision to take a personal loan, Experian surveyed a group of 186 Americans who had taken a personal loan in the past 12 months.\nOf this group, only 26% said they took the loan because of direct financial hardship from COVID-19. Another 24% said the pandemic had some influence on their decision to take a new loan, but was not the entire reason for their doing so.\nThe vast majority of those surveyed said they were confident in their ability to pay back their debt. A total of 86% of respondents said they can afford the monthly payment on their personal loan, according to the survey. The remaining 14% did not say they could afford their monthly payment.\nFinally, the pandemic hasn't only changed the ways borrowers think about taking out debt, but it's changed how some lenders view applicants. According to media reports, the pandemic's economic impact has caused some lenders to reign in the number of loans they issued. Any reduction in lending that occurred could have contributed to the slowing overall debt growth.\nEven if consumers had maintained—or even increased—their appetite for personal loans during the pandemic, with a reduction in borrowing opportunities, debt growth is bound to slow. END