Overview and definitions

Collateral is a physical or financial asset pledged as security against a loan. Every collateral record belongs to one specific loan application. Collateral is captured during application intake, refined during verification, and kept up to date over the loan lifetime through periodic re-evaluations.

Each collateral record carries:

• a type (e.g., real estate, vehicles)
• a registration number and registration date (e.g., property deed number, vehicle VIN)
• a description of the asset
• a value (current monetary worth)
• a valuation period (in months) — how often the value should be refreshed
• the latest valuation date and the next valuation date
• supporting documents (appraisal reports, title documents, photographs)
• product-specific custom fields (e.g., property address for real estate, VIN for vehicles)

Collateral is the basis for the loan-to-value ratio (LTV) used during credit decisioning, and it is independently tracked over the loan lifetime so that secured exposure stays accurate.