r2i forum

This is for a friend who has been living in the US for the past 3 years and is here on a H1 visa.

His car loan application (at Bank of America) was denied ... they told him he needs to be either a citizen or have a permanent residency number to apply for the auto loan.

I thought this was an odd requirement (unless I'm mistaken). Any suggestions on where he might apply for the loan?

Ask your friend to try at Digital Federal Credit Union. My experience with them was awesome in the year 2007. Everything was handled via phone, email, fax and their website.

if he is buying through a dealer, they will already have financing options lined up.

I got a loan from a local credit union in 2003 when I bought from a private buyer and there were no such requirements.

I would suggest our friend to go with the credit union where his employer is part of . He may get better terms than dealer finance. Dealer finance is another source of profit for dealer.

He can contact the local credit union and get the loan approved(provided he is staying in the same county for a while..might have to open a checking account with them).Hard to beat the CU rates
DCU might be a good place to start but depending on where you live it might involve sending your docs to them and recving in mail

Once the CU loan is linedup,you can ask the dealer to beat that rate