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Here’s what to do if your student loans are forgiven

seksan Mongkhonkhamsao | Moment | Getty Images

It’s a question millions of Americans would love the chance to ask: What should I do after my student loans are canceled?

The Biden administration has already given more than 450,000 borrowers reason to think about that, after forgiving the debt for certain disabled borrowers and others who attended fraudulent colleges.

More than 40 million people, of course, are still saddled with the loans, but there are signs that more relief could be on the way.

The U.S. Department of Education has announced that it will be making a number of changes to broaden the reach of the public service loan forgiveness program, which excuses the debt of those who’ve worked for the government or non-profits for a decade.

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And President Joe Biden has said he supports erasing at least $10,000 for all borrowers, while top Democrats, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., continue to pressure the president to wipe out $50,000 for all. Those proposals would leave between a third and more than 80% of borrowers debt-free.

Getting your student loans forgiven will likely be a turning point in your financial life.

The typical bill is around $400 a month, and research finds the payments make it harder for borrowers to start businesses, save for retirement and purchase a house.

“This is a great opportunity to go back and examine your cash flow so you can figure out where to deploy the money you were previously spending on your loan payments,” said Douglas Boneparth, certified financial planner and president of Bone Fide Wealth in New York.

First steps

Once a borrower’s loans are forgiven, they should ask their lender for a copy of their promissory note stamped “paid in full,” said Betsy Mayotte, president of The Institute of Student Loan Advisors, a nonprofit.

“This can take a few months,” Mayotte said. “I would save this, as well as the forgiveness approval letter, in their ‘never throw away’ files.”

It could take up to 60 days for your credit report to reflect the drop in debt, Mayotte said. (The three credit bureaus provide a free report once a year.)

“If it doesn’t after that period, the borrower should file a credit dispute or contact the loan servicer,” she said.

Financial moves

Experts recommend that people have enough cash in an emergency savings account to cover between three months to a year of their usual expenses should other income sources dry up.

“If you’re low on cash and could use a greater cushion, this is the first place I would consider putting my money,” Boneparth said.

To watch your savings grow faster, store your money in a high-yield savings account. Experts point out that it’s worth shopping around with different banks to find the best offer: The average online savings account rate is around 0.45%, while it’s just 0.14% with traditional brick-and-mortar banks and credit unions, according to DepositAccounts.com.

(You’ll just want to make sure any account you put your savings in is FDIC-insured, meaning up to $250,000 of your deposit is protected from loss.)

If you’re comfortable with the level of your emergency savings, Boneparth recommends redirecting the cash from your student loans to your retirement funds.

If your company offers a 401(k) match at work, try to salt away enough to get the full benefit. In addition, or if you’re self-employed or without a workplace retirement plan, you can save up to a certain amount each year in individual retirement accounts.

“If those are maxed out, start an automatic monthly investment plan to a brokerage account,” Boneparth said.

If you have any credit card debt, experts also advise using the freed up cash to pay it down quicker.

Above all, try to avoid running up another tab, said higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz.

“Enjoy the sense of freedom that comes with being debt-free,” he said.

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Navient, with six million borrowers, asks to stop servicing federal student loans.

A second major federal student loan servicer is calling it quits, a decision that will force the Education Department to transfer the accounts of millions of borrowers just as the government begins to resume collecting payments early next year.

Navient said on Tuesday that it wanted to end its contract with the federal government and offload its responsibilities to Maximus, another federal loan servicer. Navient services the accounts of around six million borrowers.

Jack Remondi, Navient’s chief executive, said the company wanted to “provide a smooth transition to borrowers” as it shifted its focus to businesses other than federal student loan servicing.

The Education Department “is reviewing documents and other information from Navient and Maximus to ensure that the proposal meets all legal requirements and properly protects borrowers and taxpayers,” Richard Cordray, the chief operating officer of the department’s Federal Student Aid office, said in statement.

Two months ago, another large federal servicer, FedLoan, said it, too, wanted out. The departures will leave the Education Department scrambling to move more than 15 million borrowers to new servicers — a process that has in the past been chaotic and error prone.

Nearly all federal student loan borrowers have been skipping their payments thanks to a moratorium on collections that the government imposed in March 2020 in response to the coronavirus pandemic. But those bills are about to return: The Biden administration has said it intends to restart collection on Jan. 31.

Navient won’t be entirely done with the federal student loan business if its request succeeds. The company is the subject of a lawsuit brought by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2017 over what the federal agency said was a pattern of misdeeds and mistakes that hindered borrowers trying to repay their loans.

“That case just continues to grind its way through the slow — very, very slow — court process,” Mr. Remondi told analysts on a recent earnings call. “We’re eager to have our day in court.”

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China to split Ant Group’s Alipay, force creation of new loans app: FT

The Ant Group Co. headquarters in Hangzhou, China, on Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021.

Qilai Shen | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Beijing plans to break up Ant Group’s Alipay and create a separate app for the fintech giant’s loans business, according to a Financial Times report on Monday.

Regulators previously ordered Ant to split the businesses of AliPay from lending businesses Huabei and Jiebei. They now want the credit businesses to be split into an independent app as well, according to the FT.

According to the plan, Ant will turn over user data underpinning loan decisions to a new credit scoring joint venture, the FT reported, citing people familiar with the process. The JV will be partly state-owned, the report said.

Hong Kong-listed shares of Alibaba, Ant Group’s e-commerce affiliate, fell more than 4% Monday afternoon following the FT report. The decline weighed on the broader Chinese tech sector as the Hang Seng Tech index declined almost 3%, with shares of other Chinese tech heavyweights like Tencent and Meituan also taking a beating.

Reuters said in early September that state-back firms are set to take a sizeable stake in the credit-scoring joint-venture, with Ant and Zhejiang Tourism Investment Group owning 35% each of the venture.

Ant will not be the only online lender in China affected by the new rules, according to the FT.

The latest developments marked more challenges for Ant’s business. The company’s planned $34.5 billion IPO in November was scuttled after regulatory discrepancies were flagged.

Months of regulatory crackdown on China’s tech giants followed, and Beijing introduced a slew of rules around anti-monopoly and data security and protection.

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China plans to break up Ant’s Alipay and force creation of separate loans app – FT

An Alipay sign at the Shanghai office of Alipay, owned by Ant Group, an affiliate of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, in Shanghai, China, September 14, 2020. REUTERS/Aly Song/File Photo

Sept 12 (Reuters) – Beijing wants to break up Alipay, the hugely popular payments app owned by Jack Ma’s Ant Group, and create a separate app for the company’s highly profitable loans business, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

The plan will also see Ant turn over the user data that underpins its lending decisions to a new credit scoring joint-venture, which will be partly state-owned, the newspaper reported, citing two people familiar with the process.

State-backed firms are set to take a sizeable stake in Ant’s credit-scoring joint venture for the first time, three people told Reuters last week.

The partners plan to establish a personal credit-scoring firm wherein Ant and Zhejiang Tourism Investment Group Co Ltd (ZJGVTT.UL) will each own 35% of the venture, while other state-backed partners, Hangzhou Finance and Investment Group and Zhejiang Electronic Port, will each hold slightly more than 5%, said one of the people. read more

According to the FT report, Ant will not be China’s only online lender affected by the new rules. The company did not immediately respond to a Reuters’ request for a comment.

In April, Chinese regulators asked Ant to conduct a sweeping business overhaul, include turning Ant itself into a financial holding firm, and fold its two lucrative micro-loan businesses Jiebei and Huabei, into the new consumer finance firm.

Chinese regulatory authorities have been targeting Ant Group and other internet “platform” giants in a wide-ranging crackdown encompassing antitrust and privacy issues, user data and cryptocurrencies.

Reporting by Aishwarya Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Kim Coghill

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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