One of the largest NBFCs of India, keeps calling me. At least once a week. Sometimes twice. And they are very polite about it.
“Sir, you have a pre-approved loan waiting. ₹5,00,000. No paperwork. Just say yes.”
To be honest, they usually sound more confident about my financial needs than I am :).
And it is not just them. These offers are everywhere. SMSes, emails, in-app pop-ups. Half the time I open my phone, I feel like someone is trying to hand me a loan. Sometimes it feels like the algorithm knows when I have had a bad day or when my account balance is a little low.
I have never taken a personal loan. But apparently, I am always eligible for one. And that is what started bothering me.
If I never asked for a loan, why are so many people trying to give me one? If I have been responsible with money, why is the system trying so hard to push me into borrowing?
That is when I realised this was more of a profiling. And slowly, I began to understand how these offers really work and why they are not as harmless or flattering as they seem.
You Are The Chosen One
Let us be honest. These offers are not random. They are not based on someone at the bank looking at your name and saying, “This person deserves a ₹5,00,000 loan.”
They are based on profiling.
Every time you swipe a card, make a payment, receive a salary, or repay any of your existing loan, your financial data leaves a trail.
Banks, NBFCs, and even fintech apps feed that trail into algorithms. These models sort customers into different segments assessing various parameters.
If your income is stable, your EMI repayments are timely, your credit score is decent, and you have not taken a loan in a while, then congratulations, you become a highly marketable customer.
For any financial institution offering a loan product, you are not just a low-risk entity. You are “likely to borrow without trouble.” You are profitable for them.
That is what “pre-approved” really means.
You are someone who may not need a loan, but someone who will probably say yes if the process is made smooth and the message is worded just right.
There is no mystery here.
Banks do not want to waste time on people who might default. They want customers who pay on time. They want interest income, not recovery calls. So they go after customers like you: stable, salaried, clean repayment record. Not desperate but just… persuadable.
And that is where psychology enters the picture.
The wording of these messages is carefully crafted.
“Pre-approved.”
“Zero paperwork.”
“Instant transfer.”
These are more like psychological nudges. They reduce friction, remove hesitation, and make borrowing feel casual.
You may not have planned to take a loan, but the moment you see that number of ₹5,00,000, you start imagining what you could do with it. A short vacation. A new gadget. Paying off something else. Or just having extra money as backup. That one line starts a chain of thoughts. And that chain often ends with a click.
The systems know this.
They know human behaviour. They know that when money feels accessible, people imagine ways to use it. They know that most people do not stop to calculate interest or weigh opportunity cost when the process feels frictionless.
That is the game. It is behavioural targeting wrapped in financial convenience.
And here is the thing from the lender’s side, it is perfectly rational. It improves conversion. It increases disbursals. It meets monthly sales targets. It grows their loan book without chasing risky profiles.
But from the customer’s side, it often creates a false sense of readiness. You feel like someone has done the thinking for you. You feel like the loan is already yours. You feel like it would be silly not to take it, because, after all, it is already approved.
And before you know it, you start spending borrowed money on things you did not even plan for.
All because an algorithm thought you would.
I Learned to Respond Instead of React
After some time, I realised that these loan offers were not going to stop. They had become a regular part of my inbox, like discounts from shopping apps or updates from my bank.
I realised that ignoring them was not enough. I needed a way to face them without getting pulled in.
So I changed how I looked at them. It is working to a large extent, I am yet to master but I am getting there.
Now, whenever I receive a pre-approved loan offer, I do not delete it immediately. I do not open it with excitement either. I take a pause and ask myself a simple question: Why this message today?
Is it because I just spent a little more than usual? Or Is it because my salary got credited? Or Is it because the system sensed a dip in my savings?
This shift helps me take control of the moment. I no longer think, “Should I take this loan?” Instead, I ask, “What in my behaviour made this offer appear now?”
Sometimes, when the timing is really accurate like during a high-spending month or after a stressful week, I do feel tempted. The idea of easy money with no paperwork can feel like relief. But I remind myself that the idea of taking a loan came only after the offer showed up.
That is usually enough to stop me.
Still, I give myself a rule. If I still feel the same need after three days, I will revisit it. I will open the offer, read the terms, and do the maths. But I will never act in the same moment that the message appears.
I also write down the reason. Why do I feel like taking a loan now? Is it for comfort? For status? For escape? Most of the time, by the time I finish writing, the feeling has passed.
This process has helped me separate my needs from the system’s nudges.
I do not say no to loans as a rule. There might be times when borrowing is useful. But I want to make that decision on my own terms, not because a notification caught me at the wrong moment.
The loan offers will keep coming. But that does not mean I have to keep responding. And most times, the move is to do nothing at all. Just act lazy, simple.
About this column
Money Insights is where I try to make sense of the strange relationship we all have with money. Not the formulas or stock tips, as there’s enough of that out there. I’m more interested in the stuff no one talks about: why smart people make silly money decisions, why we feel rich on Instagram but broke in real life, and why doing nothing is often the best financial move. This column isn’t about what to buy. It’s about how to think. And sometimes, unthink.