Completing your repayment term - prevent paying back more than you owe

Why would I pay back more than I owe?

HM Revenue & Customs notifies us once a year of how much you have paid towards your student loan through the tax system.

This means that we can only monitor your outstanding balance on an annual basis, rather than monthly. For that reason, it is possible you could repay more than is outstanding on your loan.

How are you going to prevent this?

In order to prevent you from paying back more than you owe, we provide an alternative way for you to make student loan repayments.

As you approach the end of your repayment term, we will give you the option to change the way you make your repayments. Rather than having an amount deducted from your salary each pay period, you will be able to make your student loan repayments by monthly Direct Debit.

What is the benefit of repaying by Direct Debit?

By making repayments monthly by Direct Debit, we will be able to calculate exactly when you are due to repay your loan in full then make sure your repayments stop at that point. This is something we are unable to do if you make repayments through the tax system.

This means:

• We can stop your payments at exactly the right time.
• You can be completely confident that you have paid your loan in full.
• You will not have to apply, and wait, for a refund of any extra payments you might have made.

How can I start repaying my loan by Direct Debit?

Each year when we receive the repayments you've made through the tax system we will use that information to calculate how long it would take you to repay your outstanding balance, based on the assumption that you would continue to make repayments at that level.

Once this calculation shows that you would complete the repayment of your loan within two years, we will write to you and give you the opportunity to switch to making your repayments monthly by Direct Debit.

Please note that you do not have to switch if you don't want to.

If you think you will fully repay your loan within the next two years but have not heard from us, please call us on 0845 0738 891.

What if I still have more than two years of repayment to go?

You will not be able to switch to making repayments by Direct Debit until your current level of repayment through your salary shows that you will repay your loan within the next two years.