How a Meridian Inquiry
Becomes a Loan.
We are not a lender. We are a service that connects deliberate Canadian borrowers with established lending partners. Here is exactly how the process works, in five steps, in the order they occur.
From Inquiry to Considered Offer.
Inquiry
You submit an inquiry through the form on /inquiry. We ask about your loan parameters, your situation, your banking relationship, and your contact preferences. We do not ask for your SIN at this stage and we do not perform a hard credit check. A soft check happens later, only with your express consent.Specialist Review
A Meridian specialist reads your inquiry within two business days. Inquiries are not auto-routed by an algorithm — they are read. The specialist considers your stated purpose, the amount under consideration, your situation, and identifies which partner lenders are best matched to your circumstances.Lender Matching
We match against partner lender criteria. You receive between one and three considered offers. We do not flood you with applications across a dozen lenders to maximise our referral fee — that is not how this works.Conversation
A specialist contacts you at the channel and window you selected. The conversation takes twenty to thirty minutes. We walk through the offers, the trade-offs between them, the total cost of capital on each, and the terms you should pay particular attention to. We answer your questions in plain language.Lender Application
You choose which of the matched lenders to apply with — or you choose none. If you proceed, you apply directly with the lender; their underwriting, their final terms, their decision. We remain available throughout if you have questions about the agreement language, but we are not the underwriter.
What We Do Not Do.
We are not a lender. We connect deliberate Canadian borrowers with established lending partners.
We do not pull a hard credit check at the inquiry stage. A soft check happens only with your express consent.
We do not share your information with anyone except the lender you choose to proceed with.
We do not work with payday-style or short-term high-rate lenders.
We do not contact you outside the channel and frequency you select.
We do not charge an application fee. There is no fee to you at any stage of the inquiry.
How Meridian Is Compensated.
Lending partners pay Meridian a referral fee when a borrower we have introduced applies with them and the application closes. The fee is determined in advance, in writing, with each partner.
The fee structure is identical across our partner network. It does not vary by lender, by interest rate, or by loan amount. This is deliberate — we do not want a specialist’s recommendation to be influenced by a marginally higher referral from one partner over another. Your interests as a borrower should be aligned with ours as a service.
You pay Meridian nothing at any stage.