Questions lenders ask us on calls
What it connects to, what it costs, how collections work and how long the move takes: the questions from our last 25 calls with lenders and lending partners, most asked first. Each answer links to the page that covers its topic in full.
Start here
Start with the scope, then the practical questions lenders ask.
Is Lokta a Loan Management System or an AI servicing tool?
Lokta includes both. Its LMS holds approved loan accounts and repayment records, with accounting, collections, reporting and collateral management. Lending Partner Management adds onboarding, activity analysis and monthly payouts. AI assists servicing within lender controls. Loan Origination is on the roadmap; approved accounts arrive from your LOS.
Which systems does Lokta connect to?
Ready today: Digio for KYC, DigiLocker, PAN checks, penny drop, eNACH and eSign; Cashfree for payouts, mandates, collections and bank verification; Gupshup for SMS and WhatsApp; email over SMTP; Tally posting; and credit-bureau reporting. Credit-bureau pulls and Account Aggregator are added once you pick the providers. Each service you use is configured and tested on your deployment before it touches a live loan.
What does Lokta cost?
There are three tiers. Starter is Lokta Next 100: no platform fee for 24 months for lenders with assets up to about USD 10 million (₹100 crore in India); that line is a ceiling, so a fresh licence with no loans qualifies too. Scale-up costs ₹1,000 per crore of assets a month, which is USD 100 per USD 1 million and is written as 1 bps, plus a one-time implementation fee of USD 5,000 to 10,000. Enterprise is priced on a call against what you need.
Can we see a demo?
Yes. Any lender or lending partner can ask for one, whatever the size of the book. Tell us your loan products and the two or three workflows that cost you the most time, and the demo runs on loans that look like yours instead of a tour of every screen. When the evaluation moves to the next stage, you get a dedicated cloud sandbox with a loan product configured, test accounts and API access.
We already have an LOS. How does a loan get to Lokta?
Once a loan is approved, your LOS hands it to Lokta by API with the approved terms, the borrower and the account identifiers. If your partner lender approves the loans, its LOS makes the handover instead. From that point the schedule, repayments, collections and accounting sit on Lokta, and your LOS stays where it is. The handover is tested on real cases before go-live, because an API call that returns success does not prove a schedule can be serviced.
Does Lokta handle collections?
Yes. Collections works from the same loan record as servicing, so the balance and days past due a collector sees are that morning’s figures. Accounts are ranked for follow-up, contact is checked against the hours RBI allows before any message goes out, promises to pay are recorded and recoveries post back to the ledger. Legal escalation stays with your people.
How long does implementation take?
Four things set it, and you can count all four before we start: how many loan products you have, how many systems connect, how much history has to move, and how much time your own team can give. As a guide, the range is six weeks to four months: one product and nothing to migrate sits at the short end, and a multi-product book moving across with a parallel run sits at the long end. Bureau certification, mandate registration and SMS template approval each run on another organisation’s clock, so they start early.
Where is our data hosted?
On the Starter tier the book is hosted in-region on AWS. The data belongs to you, you can export it, and it is never used to train models for anyone else. A lender that wants the platform inside its own cloud account can take a VPC deployment, shipped as Docker images on AWS or another cloud, offered in the Enterprise tier.
Can we run Lokta beside our current system before we switch?
Yes, and for a migrated book that is the standard path. Both systems process the same live loans through at least one complete billing cycle, and every balance, bucket and next instalment is compared account by account. You cut over only when the numbers agree, and until then your current system stays the record.
Integrations
Does Lokta post to Tally?
Yes, Tally posting is ready today. Lokta keeps its own double-entry Accounting Ledger, and the entries post from there to the Tally books your finance team keeps, so nobody keys them in by hand.
Can Lokta connect to Zoho Books or SAP?
Yes, as an integration built for your deployment. We agree which entries flow, in which direction, how often, and who signs off the test. The connection counts as live once it has passed that acceptance test on your data.
Does Lokta report to the credit bureaus?
Yes. Credit-bureau reporting is ready today and included in the Starter tier, from data preparation and validation through to submission. For lenders in India that follows the cadence in force since July 2026: data as on the 9th, 16th, 23rd and the last day of each month. Bureau pulls are a separate connection, added once you choose the bureau.
Which payment gateways and collection rails does Lokta work with?
Cashfree is ready today for payouts, mandates, collections and bank verification, on your own Cashfree and bank accounts. eNACH also runs through Digio, and the mandate path is tested with the provider you choose before it posts a repayment.
Can Lokta take data from Perfios or another bank-statement provider?
Bank statement analysis is ready through Digio. Another provider such as Perfios is added once you choose it and its API contract is confirmed. If the data is used to approve a loan, that connection sits with your LOS, because Lokta starts after approval.
Does Lokta send SMS and WhatsApp reminders?
Yes. SMS and WhatsApp go through Gupshup, ready today, and email through an SMTP service you agree with us. In India an SMS sender ID and its templates must clear DLT registration with the telecom operators before the first message, and that queue runs on the operators’ timetable, so it starts early.
Can a new integration corrupt the live book?
A feed cannot write to a live loan until it has been rated for risk and proven safe on a controlled path first. Every write it makes lands as an add-only event, so a bad file is traced and reversed instead of quietly changing balances.
Is there an API our engineers can build on?
Yes. Lokta publishes 314 REST endpoints, available now, and the version sits in the URL path, so an upgrade does not break what you built.
Pricing
What does 1 bps mean in money?
₹1,000 a month for every crore of assets, or USD 100 a month for every USD 1 million. A basis point is one hundredth of one percent, so a ₹75 crore book pays ₹75,000 a month. It is charged on assets, not on interest income.
What one-time fees come with Starter?
For lenders in India, moving an existing book across costs ₹1 lakh once, and a bank integration costs ₹50,000 flat, both plus applicable taxes. A newly licensed lender with no loans to bring pays no migration fee, and no bank integration fee when it takes Lokta’s out-of-the-box payment gateway. Metered AI is billed separately, and you approve it before it is switched on.
When does billing start on Starter?
At whichever comes first: average monthly assets above the ceiling for two consecutive months, or the end of the 24 months. One month above the line is not enough to start the charge. From then the published rate of ₹1,000 per crore a month applies, with no new quote, and it keeps running if the book later dips back under the line.
We lend outside India. Do the same terms apply?
Starter is open to lenders anywhere with assets up to about USD 10 million, or the local equivalent, on the same conditions. Scale-up carries the same rate everywhere: USD 100 a month per USD 1 million of assets (1 bps), plus the implementation fee.
Collections and borrower contact
Can collections run a different strategy in each bucket?
Yes. Pre-due, 1-30, 31-60 and 61-90 days past due and NPA can each carry their own treatment. Bucket movement, roll-back and roll-forward included, is read from the same record the repayment posts to.
Does Lokta keep to RBI’s rules on recovery contact?
The platform checks the contact window before a call or message goes out, so nothing leaves before 8 am or after 7 pm, and every contact is logged on the account. The check sits in the platform, so it applies to every message sent through it.
Does the AI contact borrowers without a person checking?
Only where you allow it. Each channel is set to one of three modes: the agent logs drafts only, the agent drafts and a person sends, or the agent sends when its confidence clears a threshold you choose. You widen it channel by channel as the drafts prove reliable.
What happens to a promise to pay?
It is recorded on the account with its date and amount, and it drives the follow-up. When the money arrives it posts to the ledger, and the classification and the borrower’s statement move with it.
Does Lokta track repossession?
Not today. Repossession and yard tracking are not part of Lokta, and neither are voice bots. Collections covers contact, promises to pay, treatment proposals, escalation and the posting of recoveries.
Is there a mobile app for field collection agents?
Not today. A field-collections app is not part of Lokta yet. Contact, promises to pay and recovery posting run through the platform and its API.
Is there an app for borrowers?
Borrowers reach servicing through WhatsApp, email and a web portal. A lender with its own borrower app connects it to Lokta through the API and keeps the design of the app.
Demo, evaluation and references
What should we send before a demo?
The loan products you have, a rough count of live loans, the systems the book touches and the two or three problems that hurt most today. That is enough to set the demo up around your cases. Nothing from your production systems is needed.
Does a demo commit us to anything?
No. The demo, the first conversation and a review of your documents cost nothing. Paid work starts only at a stage scoped and priced before it begins, such as a reconciliation on your own extract or a bounded trial.
Can we speak to a lender that uses Lokta?
The proof we publish today is the team’s own record: Lokta is built by people who helped create Apache Fineract, and that work is public. Customer stories will follow once lenders agree to be named, and we will not name one before they do.
How do we check the platform without a reference?
Make us prove it on your data. The assessment has us demonstrate each capability you are counting on, on data shaped like yours, and reconcile your own extract line by line before anything moves.
Will you sign our NDA?
Yes. An NDA is a normal step before you share product rules, data extracts or internal documents, and we sign it before any of those reach us.
Will you fill in our vendor or security questionnaire?
Yes. Send it with your RFP or on its own. Invite us to an RFP and you get our read on fit, with a draft response template, inside five business days.
Is there a questionnaire we can start from?
The RFP toolkit carries a security and compliance questionnaire of 63 questions across 12 categories, written for a regulated loan book. Use it whole or cut it down to the parts your CRO and compliance team care about.
Your LOS, and what is not included
Does Lokta offer loan origination today?
Not today: Loan Origination is on the roadmap. What you can buy now covers the book after approval, through Loan Management, AI Loan Servicing and RBI Model Risk Management.
Does Lokta decide whom to lend to?
No. Credit decisions stay in your LOS and with your credit team. Lokta works on the loan once it has been approved.
Does Lokta replace our LOS?
No. Lokta picks the loan up at approval and leaves your LOS in place. It does replace the loan management system for each book you move across, because Lokta’s ledgers become the system of record for that book.
Do you have a leasing module?
No. Lokta has no leasing module.
Implementation and migration
How soon can we start?
Under Lokta Next 100 there are two assisted implementation starts a month, and applications are taken in the order they come in. Once a month is full, an approved lender starts in the next month with space.
What does our own team need to give?
Someone who knows the day-to-day operation of the book, someone with access to the current system, and someone from finance who can rule on a reconciliation difference. How much time they have during configuration and testing sets the pace as much as anything on our side.
We have a fresh licence and no loans yet. Is that quicker?
Yes. With nothing to migrate there is no parallel run, which takes the longest phase out of the plan. On Starter, a lender with no book to move also skips the setup and migration fees.
What has to move across with the loans?
Six things, all tied to one freeze date: the loan terms, the schedule the borrower was really billed on, every ledger and GL posting, the full DPD, SMA and NPA history, the charges and waivers, and the bureau history with CKYC links. Moved on separate timelines, they stop agreeing with each other.
Which systems can a book migrate from?
Apache Fineract, any other loan management system, or a book kept in spreadsheets. The parallel run compares Lokta’s figures with whatever the book runs on today, system or process.
Can we move one product first?
Yes. You can start with one book and bring the others across later. The agents and the guardrails behave the same way on every book after the first.
Accounting, classification and audit
Does Lokta include a general ledger?
Yes. Disbursal, accrual, repayment, charges, waivers and write-off each post double-entry to GL heads you map. The postings come from the record that computes the schedule, so there is no second system to reconcile at month end.
How does Lokta handle a reversal?
A reversal is a new entry that offsets the original. The original stays on the record with who made the change and why, because history is appended and never overwritten.
Does Lokta classify SMA and NPA accounts automatically?
Yes. The day-end run sets SMA-0, SMA-1, SMA-2 and NPA from days past due, with RBI’s rules held as configuration. The date each account moved is kept with the account, so the trail is there when an auditor asks.
Does Lokta meet India’s audit-trail rule for accounting software?
Every change is recorded with the actor, the action, the evidence and a before and after snapshot, on a record that only ever grows. Whether your loan system falls inside Rule 3(1) is for your statutory auditor to settle, so agree it with them before the year closes.
Analytics and dashboards
What reports and dashboards come with Lokta?
Reporting and analytics are part of the platform on every tier, read from the same ledger as the loans. Portfolio and collections views, bucket movement among them, are there from go-live, and a self-serve report builder lets your team put together its own reports without a request to us.
Can we see performance by sourcing partner?
Yes. Each loan is attributed to the partner that sourced it, against the agreement version in force, and partner-book performance and fee approvals sit in Loan Management with it.
Can we ask questions of the book in plain language?
Yes. Through the Lokta MCP server, staff can ask Claude about the book and get answers drawn from it. Access is read-only, so a question can never change a loan.
More than one entity or lender
Can we keep more than one legal entity on one Lokta platform?
Yes, in the Enterprise tier. Each entity sits in its own tenant with its own database schema, so its books, users and reports stay apart from the others.
We service loans for more than one lender. Can each book stay separate?
Yes. Each loan is tagged to its lender, and partner books are isolated across loans, cases, messages, audit logs and analytics. An agent working Partner A’s queue sees only Partner A, and reports never mix volumes across lenders.
How do repayments post when a partner lender offers no API?
By statement upload. Every loan carries a tag for the lender it belongs to, so repayments read from a bank or partner statement post against the right loan and the right lender. This is available today for LSPs and co-lenders whose partners will not open an integration.
AI and governance
Can the AI change a loan on its own?
No. An agent drafts the action and the reason for it. The deterministic core checks the draft against your policy and the approvals it needs, and only the core writes to the ledger, so every change carries the record of who allowed it.
Which AI models does Lokta use?
OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, Meta Llama, Mistral and Cohere, or open models you host yourself. The governance layer sits above the model, so changing models leaves the limits on what an agent may do exactly where they were.
Can Lokta help with RBI’s model risk expectations?
Yes, through RBI Model Risk Management, which you can use now. It keeps the model inventory, validations, approvals, gaps and board pack in one place, and covers vendor, bureau and co-lending models beside your own. Compliance remains your board’s call; the product makes the evidence ready to show.
What does the audit trail record?
Every read and write is an event: what changed, who or which agent made the change, the evidence used and the policy that allowed it. AI prompts, responses and the actions they led to sit in the same trail as a person’s actions.
Security, support and exit
Does RBI require us to host our LMS on-premises?
No. RBI’s outsourcing directions do not prescribe a hosting model. They ask for audit rights over the provider, a continuity and recovery plan that has been tested, and an exit plan, and a hosted or a VPC deployment meets or fails that test on its contract and on your own testing.
How is borrower data protected?
Personal data is encrypted at field level with versioned keys. Access is scoped by tenant, organisation unit and role, state-changing actions need maker-checker approval, and every change is logged with who made it.
What support do we get after go-live?
Support runs by email and phone, with response times set by the severity of the issue and the commitments written into your agreement. Enterprise adds dedicated engineering support, and our team works through each go-live with you instead of handing over a manual.
Who sets up new loan products after go-live?
Your team, in the Loan Product Studio. A product is assembled from 200 parameters across 19 configuration domains, simulated, reviewed and then activated. Most products come together from configuration rather than code.
Can we leave and take our data with us?
Yes. The data is yours and you can export it. RBI’s outsourcing rules expect a lender to keep an exit plan it has rehearsed, and a full export is what makes that plan workable.
Nothing here matches that.