These loans are also, typically, more expensive than the other forms of credit that we have discussed thus far in this guide
The next thing that you should do after finding the account that you wish to open is to formally apply to open it. You can either go into a branch or, with some banks and building societies, you may even be able to do the entire thing online from home. Once you have applied for the account to be opened, the chances are that you will be accepted for at least the current account itself. After this, you will probably find out what limit you are going to be set for your overdraft, there will be some room to negotiate on this figure but normally not much. However, if when you are given your overdraft limit you find that it is too low, then you can still think about getting another account with a similar setup and using them both at the same time. At the time of writing this article, Nationwide are currently offering a current account called the Nationwide FlexDirect, which allows new customers to access an interest free overdraft for the first 12 months of the account. Be aware though, the account will charge you 50p per day for every day that you remain overdrawn beyond the introductory 12 month period.
Option 3: Flexible loans
One of the options for taking out credit, that many people often do not consider, is to look into taking out credit in the form of what is referred to as a flexible loan. Flexible loans work in much the same way as standard personal loans but allow you a little bit more wiggle-room when it comes to making your repayments. Unlike with a standard personal loan, flexible personal loans allow you to change the size of your repayments when you need to. What this means is that you are allowed to pay back more than the specified monthly repayment sum, whenever you’d like to and doing this will not incur a penalty of any kind. This can be extremely helpful for people who need to borrow more credit than it is possible to take out on a card or an overdraft, but who don’t want to get tied into a rigid long-term repayment plan by their bank or building society.
This form of credit is a little bit harder to get than the previous two that we have discussed in this guide. The main reason that it is harder to be accepted for one of these flexible loans, by a bank or building society, is that these loans are typically for much larger sums of money than you would ever be able to borrow on a credit card or with an overdraft. The basic criteria for getting a loan like this is basically the same though- you need to have a decent credit rating and also proof of a steady income. 
This means that you need to make sure that you are confident of being able to make your repayments before you jump in and take out one of these loans.
There is a huge amount of variety in price when it comes to flexible personal loans. They can typically range between anywhere from 5% all the way up to 18%. This means that it is incredibly important that you look into all of the various options that are available on the market before you sign up to any loan in particular. There are a huge amount of banks and building societies, along with other lenders, that offer this form of flexible loan, and each one of those lenders will have a variety of different products that may or may not suit your requirements. As a result of this, it often be extremely difficult to find out exactly which product is the best suited to your financial needs and situation. One of the best ways to easily see the various products that are out there on the market right now, is by using a flexible loan price comparison tool. These tools work by searching through their extensive, regularly-updated databases to find out which flexible loans are currently being offered by banks and building societies across the country. This means that you can save yourself a lot of time by not having to scroll through all the various websites of all the various banks and building societies in order to find the one that is right for you. Not only will these price comparison tools allow you to see how competitive the prices but they will also allow you to see other important information on each bank or building society, such as their customer satisfaction rating and so on.