In a bid to tackle over-repayments, the Student Loans
Company is urging customers to switch to Direct Debit in
the final months of paying their student loan and to ensure
their contact information is up to date, including bank
account information.
In the last financial year, over 31,000 customers made
unnecessary over-repayments at the end of their loan. This
resulted in over £19 million being overpaid to SLC.
Over-repayments are entirely avoidable if customers switch
to Direct Debit at the end of their loan term. Almost £16
million of these over-repayments have already been refunded
to customers but this is only possible by ensuring contact
information is up to date, including bank account
information.
SLC writes to every customer as they enter the final two
years of repayment inviting them to switch to Direct Debit
to avoid over-repaying, however, more than 75% of customers
choose to continue paying through salary deductions.
To make receiving a refund even easier, in March, SLC
started automatically refunding customers with up to date
information. Since its introduction, SLC has automatically
refunded over £4 million to customers who have not joined
the Direct Debit scheme and have not yet claimed a refund.
This is possible for customers when SLC hold up to date
contact details, including bank account information.
Steven Darling, Director of Repayments Strategy at the
Student Loans Company, said: “Over-repayments are entirely
avoidable and occur if a customer does not switch to Direct
Debit in the final stages of their repayment term.
“It has never been easier to find out when repayment is
coming to an end as customers can quickly check their up to
date balance on our online repayment service and call us to
switch to Direct Debit in the final stages of their loan.
“We also proactively contact customers as they enter the
final two years of repayment to encourage them to switch to
Direct Debit. We have been working hard to ensure that
every customer knows when to switch to Direct Debit, and
for those who don’t, we have been speeding up and improving
our automatic refund process.
“Customers can always contact us if they are due a refund,
but we would rather avoid over-repayments altogether and
for customers to take action when they are coming to the
end of their repayment term.”
More information on the steps to take when student loan
repayments are coming to an end is available online.
https://endofloan.campaign.gov.uk/
