Welcome to the Finder Personal Loans Customer Satisfaction Awards 2022
The best way to determine the value of a product is by speaking to the people who actually use it – the customers. For our 2022 Customer Satisfaction Awards, we asked customers of the UK’s leading personal loan providers what they thought of their lender to see which came out on top.
The winners
Our winning companies are decided based on their overall satisfaction score (star rating) and recommendation score (how likely customers would be to recommend the lender to a friend). You can read more on our methodology below.
Here are the winners for 2022:
Personal Loans Customer Satisfaction Winner:
M&S Bank
M&S Bank is our Personal Loans Customer Satisfaction Awards Winner for 2022! M&S Bank takes the award thanks to a strong 5-star rating and impressive recommendation score. 87% of M&S Bank personal loan customers would recommend the lender to their friend, beating the rest of the competition.
Read our full review of M&S personal loans
Personal Loans Customer Satisfaction Highly Commended:
Zopa
Finishing hot on the heels of M&S Bank, Zopa is this year’s highly commended personal lender, which also has a 5-star rating. According to surveyed Zopa customers, 83% would recommend the lender to a friend.
Founded in 2005, Zopa is a peer-to-peer lender that was one of the first websites to bring together borrowers and savers, offering an alternative source of lending outside traditional UK banks.
Read our full review of Zopa personal loans
Our customer satisfaction league table 2022
| Overall satisfaction | Customers who’d recommend | Lender | Review | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 87% |  | M&S Bank | Topping the poll for 2022, is a stalwart of the British high street. Marks & Spencer was founded in 1884 and now offers personal loans up to £25,000 with competitive rates, plus discounts for M&S members. | Read our review |
| 83% |  | Zopa | This year’s runner-up, Zopa is a peer-to-peer lending platform that provides personal loan rates that are often lower than the high street lenders. | |
| 84% |  | Santander | The Spanish banking giant has long been a fixture of the UK’s high street banking industry and offers personal loans up to £25,000 for those who are at least 21 years old. | Read our review |
| 83% |  | NatWest | NatWest offers personal loans for existing customers only, meaning you’ll need to have had another NatWest product for at least 3 to 6 months. | Read our review |
| 80% |  | Tesco | Tesco Bank has been offering personal loans for over 20 years. You can borrow up to £35,000 and can get an instant decision on your application. If you’re a Tesco Clubcard member, you may even be eligible for a discounted rate. | Read our review |
| 80% |  | HSBC | Founded in Hong Kong in 1865, and now one of the UK’s “Big Four” banks, HSBC provides personal loans for new and existing customers for up to 8 years. You can apply for a loan online or in person at an HSBC branch. | Read our review |
| 77% |  | Barclays | Barclays is another of the “Big Four” UK banks and has been in operation for over 300 years. It offers personal loans up to £50,000, with discounted rates available to Barclays current and premium account holders. | Read our review |
| 69% |  | Pepper Money | A specialist lender offering second-charge mortgages, Pepper Money (formerly Optimum Credit) has financed over £500 million in secured loans for UK customers since 2014. Pepper Money will be rebranding to Pepper Money laster this year. | Read our review |
| 76% |  | Halifax | Halifax offers personal loans for new and existing customers. Those who have a Halifax current account can even borrow up to £50,000. | Read our review |
| 66% |  | Sainsbury’s | Sainbury’s Bank provides competitive personal loans of up to £40,000 for customers in the UK. Similar rival supermarket brands, Sainsbury’s also offers discounted personal loan rates to its Nectar cardholders. | Read our review |
| 68% | | Post Office | A government-owned retail post office company, the Post Office also provides financial products through its Post Office Money brand. It offers personal loans with competitive rates and flexible repayment terms. | |
| 62% |  | Likely Loans | A new entrant this year, Likely Loans is one of the few providers that will lend to people with lower credit scores without a guarantor. Formed in 2014, Likely Loans is part of Oakbrook Finance. | Read our review |
Customer satisfaction ratings methodology
In December 2021, we ran an independent customer satisfaction survey on personal loan providers. We received answers from 908 personal loan customers, who gave us their opinion on their current lender.
We asked respondents how satisfied they are with their personal loan provider (giving a rating from one to five) and whether they would recommend the lender to a friend. We converted the results into star ratings and created a shortlist of the best-performing brands for our awards. Where there was a draw in terms of star ratings, we used the recommendation score (the percentage of customers who said they would recommend the lender to a friend) as a tie-breaker.
Full details of our star ratings for this sector are on the personal loans rating methodology page.
Personal loan ratings
★★★★★ — Excellent
★★★★★ — Good
★★★★★ — Average
★★★★★ — Subpar
★★★★★ — Poor
The customer satisfaction score (“You say”) is based on a survey of 908 customers carried out in December 2021.
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