Is borrowing via WhatsApp safe? This is a common question for many Brazilians who have come to know this new way of applying for credit.

Today, several financial institutions, even the most well-known ones, such as Banco do Brasil, work by offering the public the possibility of borrowing money from a simple conversation on WhatsApp.

But, this new option on the market seems so easy that many people doubt whether it is really reliable. Mainly because in the process of applying for a loan it is necessary to send various personal data to the institution.

Therefore, if you have this doubt and want to know if the WhatsApp loan is really safe, continue with us in this post that we explain better to you about how this process works.

First, let's better understand how the loan made by WhatsApp works in practice.

Therefore, the loan made through this channel works in a similar way to the other channels that financial institutions make available for people to make a loan.

However, what sets it apart is that instead of filling out forms, you'll be sending information from a conversation.

Thus, to start the conversation, you must have the official WhatsApp number of the financial institution saved on your cell phone. With that done, just start the conversation, where at first, you'll talk to a virtual attendant.

Thus, the attendant will guide you on how to apply for the loan and which documents to send. When sending it, the bank will analyze it and, with everything right, approve the credit.

With this, the bank will send the contract to sign digitally and thus formalize the loan. That way, just wait until the money is released into your account!

As much as the WhatsApp loan is very easy, people still have doubts about whether it is safe to do this process through this channel.

After all, WhatsApp is just a messaging app, so it's even normal to have some distrust.

However, here it is important to consider that the chat application has a strict security technology. Here, all your messages are protected by state-of-the-art encryption.

In this way, it is very difficult for the content you sent through the conversation to be somehow stolen and misused.

Thus, the only way for your data to be stolen and misused is if you send it to a different number from the financial institution. This is already known as a scam, and can be easily avoided by preventing it.

WhatsApp is a secure tool. However, scams can still be applied to users.

The most common is when a scammer impersonates the bank and sends a message offering loans and other very attractive financial services.

In addition, there are also people who can copy your WhatsApp number to access your conversations from other devices.

To help you pay attention to possible scams, we have separated below some measures that you can implement and that will help you not to fall into possible scams.

So that you can safely take out a loan via WhatsApp, banks seek to guide their audience on which number to contact.

For this, many banks can use verification, which is a sign that appears on the name of the contact to show that it is the official number.

If you don't have this sign, you can check on the bank's website if the number saved on your cell phone is the same as the one it informs to contact you via WhatsApp.

Financial institutions cannot ask for advance payments when they are going to release access to the loan.

That way, the only item you have to pay is the loan installment. Banks send it after you sign the contract.

Therefore, if you receive messages informing an amount to pay in advance, be suspicious, because serious banks do not usually have this practice.

Another practice that helps you avoid falling into scams and getting a loan through WhatsApp is to know in depth the loan you are considering applying for.

Here you can search for payment terms, the maximum amount released and the interest rate applied.

By knowing these simple data, it is already possible to escape offers that seem too attractive.

And speaking of offers, they are the main baits that scammers can use to offer you a loan.

Because of this, it is essential that you know the main characteristics of a loan. In this way, it becomes more difficult to believe in some very attractive offer, which is even unrealistic.

Through WhatsApp conversations, people can send different types of media, and links are one of them.

However, many scammers can send links that, when clicked, copy your personal data or clone your WhatsApp number.

So, when accessing this, they can do several things, such as asking their contacts for money or using their personal data to access financial products.

Therefore, be careful with the links sent and, once again, make sure you are talking to the official number of the banks, which do not send suspicious links.

Finally, to make a secure WhatsApp loan, it may be interesting to protect your application. 

As we mentioned earlier, this application contains good security technology and offers several ways for you to protect yourself.

The first is using apps that generate authentication codes, such as Google Authenticator.

Some apps ask you to prove you're yourself, so they use two-step verification.

In WhatsApp, verification is done by sending an SMS. But, to make you more protected, it's interesting to use applications that generate authorization codes. Thus, you avoid clone your WhatsApp.

Another well-known way is to activate the two-step verification of WhatsApp. From there, the app can ask you for a password that appears sometimes when you sign in.

Thus, you avoid that, if your WhatsApp is cloned, the scammer can spend a long time browsing your conversations.

Now that you know if applying for a loan via WhatsApp is safe, check out our post below on how to protect yourself from payroll loan scams.