Every Term This Site Uses, Defined

Forty-four terms, A to Z, each personal loan term defined in two to four sentences of plain language — with an anchor link per term so any page on this site (or anyone else's) can point straight at a definition.

How to use the page: jump by letter below, or arrive from any SeedFi Loan guide's inline link and read one entry in ten seconds. The definitions favor practical meaning over legal completeness — what the term does to your money, not its statutory phrasing — and where a full SeedFi page exists behind a concept, the term's own entry is the short version of that page — the SeedFi Loan guides expand what these lines compress. The personal loan vocabulary here is deliberately the same vocabulary used everywhere on this site: one set of words, used consistently, is half of what makes offers readable.

A

ACH Transfer

The electronic bank-to-bank system that moves your funded personal loan into checking and pulls each personal loan payment back out. ACH runs on banking days only, which is the entire reason weekend signatures fund on Tuesday. It's slower than a wire but free, which is why lending runs on it.

Amortization

The schedule that splits every fixed payment between interest and principal so the balance hits exactly zero on the final month. Early payments carry more interest, late ones more principal. Understanding this one word explains why early extra payments save so much.

APR (Annual Percentage Rate)

The yearly cost of a loan with mandatory fees folded in — the only number that makes two personal loan offers honestly comparable. Federal law requires it on every offer. When this site says 'compare on APR,' this is the line it means.

Autopay

Automatic monthly withdrawal of your payment from checking. Several SeedFi network lenders discount the APR 0.25–0.50% for enabling it, and it removes the most common way good borrowers get late fees: forgetting.

B

Balance

What you still owe right now — principal remaining, not the sum of future payments. Your payoff amount is the balance plus a few days of accrued interest, which is why lenders quote it precisely on request.

Borrower

The person who signs the loan agreement and owns the repayment obligation. On SeedFi network personal loans there's exactly one — no cosigners, no joint applications, one name and one credit file per loan.

C

Collections

What happens when a debt goes long unpaid: the account transfers or sells to a collector. Paid collections vanish from modern credit reports entirely, and medical collections under $500 never appear — two rules that shape smart payoff sequencing.

Cosigner

Someone who signs alongside a borrower and shares full legal liability. Not used in this network — and at $500–$5,000, a household's stronger earner applying alone usually beats any joint arrangement anyway.

Credit Bureau

The three companies — Equifax, Experian, TransUnion — that compile credit reports. Most network lenders report your personal loan payments to all three, which is how clean repayment becomes portable reputation.

Credit Inquiry (Hard)

A credit check tied to an actual application, visible to future lenders, costing a few points for a few months. Through SeedFi you take exactly one — from the lender whose offer you accept — no matter how many you compared.

Credit Mix

The variety of account types on your file. A report that's all credit cards gains from adding one installment account, which is a quiet side benefit of a cleanly repaid personal loan.

Credit Report

Your borrowing history as the bureaus record it: accounts, balances, payment marks, inquiries. Free weekly copies at the official annualcreditreport site — and checking yours before a request catches the errors that silently cost APR.

Credit Score

The three-digit compression of your report, roughly: payment history 35%, amounts owed 30%, history length 15%, new credit 10%, mix 10%. Useful shorthand, but lenders at this loan size read income just as hard.

D

Debt Consolidation

Replacing several debts with one new personal loan sized to their exact payoff total — one rate, one due date, one printed end. Works when the new APR beats the blended old one and the spending that built the balances has stopped.

Debt-to-Income Ratio (DTI)

Monthly obligations divided by gross monthly income, with the prospective payment included. Under 36% reads comfortable, past 45% most lenders stop. The eligibility factor most fixable inside thirty days.

Default

The formal failure state of a loan after sustained non-payment — charged off, sent to collections, sued in some states. Everything servicers offer (reschedules, hardship plans) exists to prevent it; the phone call before a missed payment is the off-ramp.

Deferment / Hardship Plan

A servicer-approved pause or reduction of payments during documented hardship. Interest usually continues accruing. Far cheaper than silent missed payments — but only available if you call before the due date, not after.

Direct Lender

A company lending its own money under its own license — the party actually funding your loan. SeedFi is not one; it's the introduction layer that lets many direct lenders compete for your request at once.

E

E-Signature

The legally binding electronic signing of your loan agreement, valid under the federal E-SIGN Act. The moment obligation begins — everything before it in the SeedFi process is free to abandon.

F

Fixed Rate

An interest rate set at signing that never moves for the life of the loan. Every personal loan in the SeedFi network is fixed — the payment quoted on day one is the payment in the final month, whatever markets do.

Funding Time

The gap between signature and money in your account: typically the next business day on ACH rails, same-day at some lenders before cut-off, never on weekends or bank holidays.

G

Grace Period

The days after a due date before a late fee applies — commonly 10 to 15 on an installment personal loan, stated in your agreement. A courtesy buffer, not a strategy; bureaus still see payments 30+ days late.

Gross Income

Income before taxes and deductions — the figure DTI calculations use. Distinct from take-home (net) income, which is what this site's 10% payment rule measures against. Mixing the two up flatters every budget it touches.

I

Installment Loan

Any loan repaid in equal scheduled payments over a set term — the structural family every personal loan belongs to, and the opposite of revolving credit. The balance falls by design every single month.

Interest

Rent on borrowed money, accruing on the outstanding balance. Shrink the balance early and the rent shrinks with it — the entire logic of extra principal payments in one sentence.

L

Late Fee

The charge for missing a personal loan payment past the grace period — flat or percentage, capped by state law, stated in the agreement. Prevented almost entirely by autopay plus a due date parked just after your paycheck lands.

Lender Network

The set of licensed lending companies reviewing requests through a matching service. One SeedFi request reaches the network in parallel — the structural reason one form beats five separate applications.

Lending License

State authorization to lend to that state's residents, carrying the state's rate caps and rules. The line between a personal loan and an unregulated product. Verifiable through your state regulator's public lookup — always.

Loan Agreement

The binding personal loan contract: amount, APR, schedule, fees, prepayment clause, late terms. It should match the offer to the digit, and the minute before e-signing it is the right minute for every remaining question.

Loan Purpose

The stated use on a request — consolidation, repair, medical. It doesn't gate approval, but purposes that repay other debt can price better, since total household debt isn't rising.

M

Matching Service

A platform routing one borrower request to many licensed lenders — SeedFi's own category. Paid referral fees by lenders, free to borrowers, and honest exactly to the degree its disclosures are.

Monthly Payment

The fixed amount due each month, produced by amortization from principal, APR, and term. The budget-facing number — kept under roughly 10% of take-home, it stays a tool instead of a stressor.

N

Net (Take-Home) Income

What actually lands in checking after taxes and deductions — the honest base for payment budgeting. The 10% rule on this site always means 10% of net, measured on your thinnest recent month.

O

Origination Fee

A one-time lender charge on a personal loan, 0–10% in this market, deducted up front or financed in. Always already inside the APR — its only surprise is making the deposit smaller than the loan amount if deducted.

P

Prepayment Penalty

A fee for paying a personal loan off early — rare in the SeedFi network and worth confirming absent on every offer. 'No prepayment penalty' turns every spare dollar into a free rate cut.

Prequalification

A soft-inquiry estimate of the personal loan you'd likely be offered, before a full application. The SeedFi Loan request stage works this way: real numbers, no score impact, no obligation.

Principal

The amount actually borrowed — what interest is charged on. Every payment retires some; extra payments retire more; and the interest you never pay is the interest on principal you no longer owe.

R

Repayment Term

The scheduled length of a personal loan, 3–36 months in this range. The lever borrowers control most: shorter terms cost more monthly and less totally, and the shortest survivable term is almost always the right one.

Representative Example

A worked cost illustration — 'borrow $2,000 at 24% APR for 12 months ≈ $189/month' — required wherever rates are advertised. Education, not an offer; the binding numbers arrive only in writing from a lender.

Revolving Credit

Credit you can reuse as you repay — cards and credit lines — with no built-in end date. The structural opposite of an installment personal loan, and the reason card minimums can stretch a small balance across a decade.

S

Soft Inquiry

A credit check that doesn't touch your score and isn't visible to other lenders — how the entire SeedFi Loan shopping stage runs. The reason comparing offers here is free in every sense.

State Rate Cap

The maximum APR your state's law allows licensed lenders to charge — why identical borrowers in different states see different offers, and why the mainstream personal loan market ends at 35.99%.

T

Total Repayment

Monthly payment × number of payments: the whole real price of a personal loan in one figure. The honest comparison number this site tells you to read before any signature, on any offer, from anyone.

U

Underwriting

The lender's evaluation of a personal loan request — credit history, income, DTI, banking — producing an offer, a counter, or a decline. Arithmetic, not judgment of character; which is why files improve and declines reverse.

V

Verification

The document-checking step between accepting an offer and signing: ID, income proof, bank confirmation. The most compressible hours in the whole funding timeline — borrowers who answer the email same-hour fund a day sooner.

When a Definition Isn't Enough

Each entry compresses a topic that several full pages expand: rates and APR live on the rates page, qualification on eligibility, the process on How It Works, and every payment number in the calculator.

The expansion map for the most-visited entries: APR, fixed rate, and representative example → the rates guide with tier tables. DTI, verification, and underwriting → the eligibility page with the document formats. Amortization, principal, and total repayment → the calculator, which turns all three from vocabulary into your own numbers. Debt consolidation → its full SeedFi Loan page plus the cleanup guides on the blog. And when a term you've met in some other lender's paperwork isn't here at all, the contact page reaches people who will define it straight and add it to this list — the glossary grows exactly one confused borrower at a time, which — as editorial processes go — is the best one a personal loan site can possibly have.