Financial Services
Fees and Pricing
Most lenders quote a rate lower than what the loan really costs, and make up the difference in fees. This is where you set both, and see what the two add up to.
Go to Financial Services → Fees for the catalogue, or set them on a loan product or an individual loan.
The build-up
Wherever fees are set, the same summary appears:
| Base rate | The interest rate on the loan |
| Fees | What the fees add, expressed as a rate |
| Effective rate | The two together — what the loan actually costs |
| Target | What you are pricing towards |
| Gap | How far the effective rate is from the target |
So a product at 2.8% with fees worth 1.2% has an effective rate of 4%. If your target is 5%, the gap tells you there is 1% still to find.
The same arithmetic runs on the portal and in Circle, so an officer in the field and the office never see different numbers for the same loan.
Setting fees
A fee has a description, an amount, and when it is charged.
| Charged as | |
|---|---|
| Percent | A share of the principal |
| Flat | A fixed amount, whatever the principal |
| Billed | |
|---|---|
| Deducted upfront | Taken from the money handed over |
| Added to principal | The borrower repays it as part of the loan |
| On the first instalment | Charged with the first repayment — the default |
Fees are free text, not picked from a fixed list, so you can charge what your institution actually charges. Every fee needs a description: a fee the borrower cannot name is one you will be asked about.
Where fees come from
A loan takes the fees from its product when it is created, then keeps its own copy. Change the product afterwards and existing loans are unaffected — what the borrower was quoted is what they were quoted.
You can edit a loan's fees while it is still pending.
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Last updated 2026-08-22