NINA loan

noun

A mortgage loan to a borrower with no verified or stated income or assets.

Meanings

nounNINA loan (plural NINA loans)

plural NINA loans

  1. businessA mortgage loan to a borrower with no verified or stated income or assets.
    2 more examples

    Low and no-documentation mortgages. Known as "NINAa" (no income, no asset verification) in the trade, these were readily available through national lenders like Citicorp Mortgage in the 1980s. Now they are primarily available through alternative brokers. Southwestern Mortgage, Inc. advertises the ultimate "no nothing" NINA loan for applicants who want to avoid paper hassles; No income verification, no tax returns, no pay stubs, no W-2 income tax forms, no established credit history needed, no Social security numbers, no U.S. immigration green card required.

    1991 December 22, “Alternative Financing Picks Up Popularity”, in Toledo Blade (Ohio)

    The NINA loan is the basis for the apocryphal “NINJA” loan that is often used as an example of excesses in the boom-era mortgage market. NINJA supposedly stood for “no-income, no job, no assets,” but no such loan ever existed. Also, the NINA code, which did exist, did not signify a loan to a borrower with no income. Rather, the code signified that the lender had no information about the borrower’s income.

    2012 May, Christopher L. Foote, Kristopher S. Gerardi, Paul S. Willen, “Why Did So Many People Make So Many Ex Post Bad Decisions? The Causes of the Foreclosure Crisis”, in Atlanta Fed Working Papers, Working Paper 2012-7, archived from the original on 19 Oct 2012, page 19n
  2. A mortgage loan to a borrower with no income or assets.

Origin

From a coding system for classifying loans to be securitized, in which N indicated "no verification", I "income", and A "assets". Other letters used were S "stated by borrower, unverifed" and V "verified".

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

NINA loan. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/NINA%20loan

MLA

“NINA loan.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/NINA%20loan. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “NINA loan,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/NINA%20loan.

Source: NINA loan on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.