About Honours Student Loans

Honours Trustee Limited (HTL) was established in 1999 to purchase a £1.03 billion portfolio of student loans from the UK Government. This was the second sale of loans by the UK Government following a similar sale to Finance For Higher Education Limited in March 1998. Honours Trustee Limited was set up and backed by a consortium of Deutsche Bank AG and the Nationwide Building Society which was selected by the UK Government as its preferred bidder after a rigorous tender process. 

When HTL purchased the loans in 1999 it entered into a contract with the Student Loans Company to continue to manage the loans. This contract terminated in October 2004 and HTL transferred the administration of the loans to Honours Student Loans (HSL).

At the time of the purchase of the loans it was agreed that the Government would remain responsible for managing the deferment process and this continues to be carried out by the Student Loans Company on the Government’s behalf.

All the loans which HSL purchased were mortgage style loans granted by the Student Loans Company prior to March 1999 and the customers whose loans were transferred were randomly selected from the Student Loans Company’s overall customer base. The selection process ensured that where a customer had multiple loans at the time of sale, all of a customer’s loans were transferred. This has minimised the instances where a single customer has loans administered separately, but customers whose loans were transferred to HSL and which have taken additional student loans since March 1999 will have loans from both HSL and the Student Loans Company and these are managed as separate loans.

Customers whose loans were transferred to HTL were notified at the time of the sale through a letter sent jointly by HTL and the Student Loans Company.

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