As the term implies, Personal loans are simply loans for any personal use. They're known as personal loans because the money is for personal use, such as buying a car or home improvements. Most lenders do not stipulate what you can spend your personal loan on, generally allowing for any purpose.

A Personal Loan is a method of borrowing a lump sum of money from a bank, building society or other financial institution to finance the buying of a new car, make home improvements or go on a luxury holiday.

Personal loans have become a popular way of raising much-needed funds for personal use Personal loan amounts vary from between £500 to £25,000. Normally, you'll receive a lump sum.

In return, you agree to make regular repayments, usually monthly. Assuming you've taken out a repayment loan, which will usually be the case, some of the money you repay will go towards servicing the loan and the rest of your payment will be used to pay off capital and reduce the outstanding debt.

Personal loans are repayable on a monthly basis at a fixed rate of interest. Generally personal loans are offered by banks, financial institutions or building societies and are available in a variety of formats with variations in size, term and purpose of the loan. It is important to know the APR (Annual Percentage Rate) of the lenders so that you can do a comparison search to get the best rate of interest.

Interest rates will vary. It is also worth bearing in mind that some lenders are only interested in lending to people whom they regard as a 'safe risk' and they will be offered lower interest rates.

A personal loan could be the best option for you if you are looking to borrowing money for between one and five years and is particularly ideal if you have other debts that you're looking to consolidate into one loan to reduce your overall monthly payments.

There are two basic types of personal loan, the secured and the unsecured.

With an unsecured personal loan you will normally make payments on a regular basis to the lender who, if you should default on the payments, would have to take legal action to obtain the outstanding money.

With a secured personal loan, the lender will ask for the amount that you borrow to be 'secured' against a piece of your property, very often your home, which would become the property of the lender in the case of default.

About the author John Mussi is the founder of Direct Online Loans who help UK homeowners find the best available loans via the www.directonlineloans.co.uk website.