Understanding your service account

Every time a borrower signs up on your platform, applies for a loan, or goes through a credit check, a small fee is charged in the background to keep those services running. These charges do not come out of your loan disbursement account. They come from a separate, dedicated account called your service account.

Understanding how your service account works ,what it is, what gets charged to it, and how to keep it funded is one of the most important operational responsibilities for any lender on Lendsqr.

If your service account runs out of funds, new borrowers cannot sign up, loan applications fail, and your API services stop working. This guide explains everything you need to know to keep your service account healthy and your lending operations running without interruption.

What is a service account?

Your service account is a prepaid balance that Lendsqr uses to charge for the platform services tied to your lender profile. When Lendsqr onboards you as a lender, the system automatically creates a service account and links it to a unique virtual account number. To fund the account, you simply make a bank transfer to that virtual account number. The deposit is processed instantly and the balance is available immediately.

Think of your service account as a prepaid wallet for your platform operations. Every time a borrower goes through onboarding, a credit check runs, an SMS is sent, or a loan is processed, the relevant fee is deducted from this balance automatically. You do not need to approve each charge individually — the system handles it in the background.

Why your service account matters

Your service account is the engine that keeps your borrower-facing operations running. As long as it has a sufficient balance, your platform functions normally. The moment it runs out, services that depend on those prepaid fees are immediately suspended.

Here is exactly what happens when your service account balance hits zero:

Onboarding is blocked — new borrowers will be completely unable to sign up or complete the onboarding process on your app. They will see an error message instead of a welcome screen.
Loan applications fail — existing borrowers may be unable to apply for loans because the background services required for processing such as credit bureau checks and decisioning modules cannot be funded.
API failures — if you are on the Business or Enterprise plan and using the Adjutor API service, all API requests will fail and return a 400 error due to insufficient balance.

To help you avoid these disruptions, Lendsqr automatically sends email reminders when your service account balance drops below ₦10,000. When you receive one of these alerts, fund your account as soon as possible to prevent any impact on your borrowers.

Real-world example

A lending company in Lagos has 500 active borrowers on their platform and processes approximately 50 new loan applications per week. Each week, their service account is charged for user onboarding fees, credit bureau checks for each application, SMS notifications, and loan processing fees.

On a Friday afternoon, their balance drops below ₦10,000 and they receive an automatic email alert. The operations manager logs in to the admin console, copies the virtual account number, and makes a bank transfer of ₦100,000. The deposit lands instantly and borrower operations continue without interruption over the weekend.

Without that top-up, any new borrowers trying to sign up on Saturday would have seen an error message, and loan applications submitted over the weekend would have failed damaging borrower trust and delaying disbursements.

What gets charged to your service account

Every chargeable service on the Lendsqr platform is deducted from your service account automatically. The exact fees depend on your subscription plan — charges generally decrease as you upgrade from the Free plan to higher tiers.

Transaction processing Charged as a hybrid fee on Lendsqr channels. On the Free plan, this is ₦200 plus 2% of the transaction amount, capped at ₦2,500. On the Enterprise plan, this drops to ₦100 plus 1.5%, capped at ₦2,000. Processing on your own client channels is free.

User onboarding Charged per user who completes onboarding on your platform. This costs ₦50 per user on the Free plan and decreases incrementally to ₦30 on the Enterprise plan.

BVN check during onboarding A fixed flat fee of ₦25 per check across all plans.

SMS charges A fixed flat fee of ₦5 per SMS for onboarding and loan invite messages. Email invitations are free.

Oraculi decisioning services Fees vary by module:

Credit bureau checks: ₦100 on the Free plan, decreasing to ₦60 on higher plans
Statement checks: ₦100 on the Free plan, decreasing to ₦25 on higher plans
Accounts checks: ₦100 on the Free plan, decreasing to ₦10 on higher plans
Ecosystem, Karma, Whitelist, Scoring, and Loci modules: free across all plans

Offline and manual actions

Manually booking a loan (offline loan): ₦50 on the Free plan, decreasing to ₦20 on higher plans
Manually creating a user: ₦50 on the Free plan, decreasing to ₦30 on higher plans

Loan origination Completely free across all plans.

Upgrading your subscription plan is one of the most effective ways to reduce your per-transaction service costs over time.

Understanding how to get your service account number

Click on the “Service transactions” sub-tab under the “Transaction Management” tab in the “Back office” section
On the services page, the stat cards provide you with your service account stats
The virtual account number card has your service account number and you can copy it.

Understanding how to search for a transaction on your service account

Click on the “Service transactions” sub-tab under the “Transaction Management” tab in the “Back office” section
On the services page, you can filter for a transaction. Click on “Filter By“ to get all the options available to filter by. You can filter by start date, end date etc.
After filtering, you will get a list of transactions that match your filter.

How to monitor and manage your service account balance

Keeping your service account funded is an ongoing operational responsibility. Here are some best practices to help you stay on top of it:

Set a funding schedule Based on your borrower volume and the fees applicable to your plan, estimate your weekly or monthly service account spend and schedule regular top-ups before the balance runs low. Review your transaction history monthly to track spending patterns.

Act on low balance alerts immediately When you receive an email alert that your balance has dropped below ₦10,000, treat it as urgent. Depending on your borrower volume, a balance of ₦10,000 may only last a few hours of normal operations.

Upgrade your plan to reduce per-transaction costs If your service account charges are growing rapidly, upgrading to a higher subscription tier can significantly reduce your per-transaction fees. For example, credit bureau checks drop from ₦100 on the Free plan to ₦60 on the Enterprise plan. Across thousands of applications, these savings add up quickly.

Reconcile charges regularly Use the filter on the Service Transactions page to review charges by date range at the end of each week or month. If you see an unexpected charge type in the narration column, cross-reference it with your platform activity to confirm it is correct.