Top 7 Facts Civil Servants Should Know About Car Loans Before Signing Up

“Is the COE car loan that you provide OK for civil servants“?

This post is up here because we get asked very often.

We understand that there are many restrictions that one has to abide with when working for the government, one of them being the taking of personal and unsecured loans. All civil servants are required to do an Annual Civil Service Declaration of Indebtedness and Interest in Investments & Properties. A little more info here.

Mindef & Armed Forces too?

Yes, this applies not just to Ministry of Education staff as shown in the above post link given (Note: if you go to the link, click on conversation to expand), but to all civil service. Being an ex-civil servant who served in the armed forces, and now working providing vehicle loans to those who need,  I am clear of the rules that are in place and the regular declarations to management that civil servants have to make about borrowings.

How Important Is This Requirement?

This management of indebtedness is to avoid financial embarrassment and helps keep the good name of all ministries as well as giving officers and management a chance to step in to give financial advice and assist when it is found that one of their staff needs help in this area.  This is for the good of the civil service and we support it fully.

How Strictly Is This Enforced in Government Ministries?

Each ministry has their own frequency of declaration, and many are on an annual basis, such as Mindef SAF, where I was from.

We have done vehicle loans for customers from various ministries and found that different managements from various ministries have their own criteria, and some require staff to make declarations of indebtedness every six months and some as often as quarterly or every three months. Stricter ministries include Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) and Ministry of Finance.

So What Do I Need to Be Aware Of If I Need A Car Loan?

You need to know that any loan you take must be of the secured type. We would like to state here that the loans we provide are of an approved type for civil servants – hire purchase (HP) car loans are allowed, just as housing loans where the property is the collateral, are allowed for the civil service. All the vehicle related loans we help our customers secure are from legal registered finance entities registered under ACRA & approved for civil servants by MAS and the government.

All loans we arrange for customers who let us know they are from civil service are secured by collateral, such as the car hire purchase loan type approved by the government that we provide.

What Loan Is Not Allowed?

Those that are not allowed are unsecured borrowings or personal loans.

Licensed money lenders are better than unlicensed money lenders but both are not allowed if you work in the civil service sector. How to tell if a money lender is licensed?

The restriction on this borrowing type (money lenders) is across all ministries – we do not know of any ministry that allows this.

What may vary across ministries is that management in some departments have insisted that loans only come from large financial institutions that are recognised by MAS. Which are the institutions with this and are recognised by MAS? See here.

Be assured, we have your interests in mind, always. That’s how we work. So, looking for that car loan? Contact us and we will call you for a discussion on which is most appropriate for your needs.