Fairstone Financial Review

Monday, July 14th

2025 Canadian Personal Loan Reviews

Fairstone Financial

• Available throughout Canada
• Loan amounts from $500 to $50,000
• Offers both secured and unsecured loans
• Interest rates start at 19.99% on secured, 26.99% on unsecured
• Terms of 6-60 months on unsecured, 36-120 months on secured
• Over 3.3. million loans approved
• "A+” rated and accredited by the BBB
• In business for over 100 years

Fairstone Financial, a prominent Canadian lender since 1923, helps borrowers across Canada, including those with varying credit histories. With a longstanding commitment to customer satisfaction, Fairstone Financial has been a trusted option for more than 3.3 million individuals seeking accessible and reliable personal loan solutions.

Secured and unsecured personal loans offered

Unlike lots of personal loan sources in Canada, Fairstone offers both secured and unsecured formats. What's the difference? Secured loans use your home or vehicle as collateral (and thus you get lower interest rates, because the loan is less risky for the bank), while unsecured loans aren't backed by anything you own (with higher interest rates and less risk for you).

Watch out for details in the fine print

There are a lot of ins-and-outs in the details of your Fairstone personal loan that you absolutely must pay attention to. For example, in the FAQs, we discovered that there's no prepayment penalty on their unsecured personal loans, but there are when you pay off a secured personal loan earlier than the term. Ouch.

Higher-than-average interest rates

You'll also want to be very clear on your interest rate. Most of Fairstone's rivals will tell you (albeit in very small print) at the bottom of their website what they charge as a minimum and maximum; here, we were only able to spot that interest rates start at 19.99% on secured loans, 26.99% on unsecured loans. That's a much higher beginning point than pretty much every other Canadian lender we evaluated.

"A+” from the BBB, as expected

We're not quite sure what to make of Fairstone's reputation. Of course, being in business for over 100 years should put to rest any worries that it's not a legitimate source of personal loans in Canada. The company has the "A+” rating and accreditation from the Better Business Bureau that you'd expect from a lender that's been around that long.

A few too many 1-star reviews

But, when we jump to other places like Trustpilot, we see a lot of mixed feelings: in fact, among the 300+ ratings left there, 60% gave Fairstone a 1-star score (and only 35% were 5-star reviews). Yes, Fairstone reps responded to those negative reviews, but it felt like some of their take was "we're so sorry you didn't read the terms closely”. When hundreds of people are having trouble understanding the terms of their personal loan to the point that they feel swindled during the course of the loan, that might be an indication that Fairstone could be doing a better job during the application and funding process.

Long history, but pay attention to the terms of your personal loan

Fairstone has a long history in the Canadian financial world, and multiple types of personal loans to choose from. For most people, this will be an option to get the funding they want. Still, we would advise borrowers to pay very close attention to the terms of their loan before they commit, maybe even having a trusted friend or advisor go over them as an extra set of eyes. There are quite a few Canadians who have felt taken advantage of by Fairstone Financial's personal loans, and that keeps us from giving the lender a higher rating.