Chipkie Loan FAQs

Chipkie is an online platform that helps friends and family lend money to each other without the awkwardness. You agree the loan together, Chipkie turns it into a clear repayment schedule, and from then on it tracks every payment, sends the reminders so you don't have to, and keeps a complete, dated record of everything that happens. When you want more certainty, you can add a personalised, e-signed loan agreement for a one-off £3.95.

Informal loans fail in predictable ways: nothing in writing, fuzzy memories of what was agreed, no shared record of what's been paid, and an awkward conversation nobody wants to start. Chipkie was built around those failures:

• Everything is agreed up front — both people review and confirm the terms before the loan starts, and any later change has to be re-confirmed.
• Every payment is mutually confirmed — one person logs it, the other confirms, so the record is something you both signed off on.
• Chipkie sends the reminders, not you — the platform is the neutral party, which keeps the relationship out of it.
• Life happens, and it's built in — payment holidays, reduced-payment arrangements, and an automatic catch-up when someone comes back from a rough patch.
• Endings are handled too — forgive the balance, settle it, mark it repaid, or issue a verified record of repayment. Loans that just fizzle out are how friendships get damaged.

No, no, and no. Chipkie never lends money, never holds your money, and takes no cut of the loan — the money moves between you and your friend or family member exactly as it always would. And Chipkie is not a debt collector: it helps you run the loan well and keeps the record straight, but it will never chase a debt on your behalf. Chipkie also doesn't give legal, tax, or financial advice.

Chipkie is available in the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States. Both people on a loan need to live in the same country — the agreement is written under the borrower's local law, so cross-border loans aren't supported yet. If your country isn't supported, you can join the waitlist while setting up and we'll email you when it is.

English only for now. If you'd like another language, tell us — we love feedback and suggestions.

Personal loans between friends and family — traditionally called informal loans. Within that, almost anything works:

• Any size from small favours up to £999,999.99.
• With or without interest — you choose the rate, and 0% is fine.
• Weekly, fortnightly, or monthly repayments, short-term or long-term.
• Common uses: helping with a car or moving costs, university expenses, a "bank of mum and dad" boost towards a deposit, clearing an expensive credit card, or backing a family member's small business.

Chipkie isn't for businesses lending in the course of business — it's for people. If we don't support your use case well, contact us.

Yes, and the free version is a genuinely complete way to run a loan:

• setting up the loan, with both people reviewing and confirming the terms,
• the full dashboard — schedule, progress, what's next, what's overdue,
• logging payments (either party) with proof attached, and one-tap confirmation,
• automatic reminders, on your own schedule and channel,
• payment holidays, reduced-payment arrangements, and automatic catch-up,
• ways to end a loan properly — forgive it, settle it, or close it by agreement,
• a Verified Repayment Record the borrower can share as proof they paid,
• downloadable loan summary and full payment-record PDFs,
• the notification centre, email updates, and the mobile app.

The one paid upgrade in the UK is the personalised loan contract — a one-off £3.95 per loan, which formalises the agreement and unlocks the premium toolkit. We recommend it for any loan over £1,000.

For a one-off £3.95 (per loan — there's no subscription), you get the formal agreement plus the premium toolkit for the life of that loan:

• A personalised loan agreement — generated from your exact terms, e-signed by every party, governed by the law of England & Wales, downloadable as a fully executed PDF.
• Tax-ready annual statements — the interest and principal figures you need at tax time, as PDF or CSV, every year the loan runs.
• Quarterly statements ("Loan Pulse") — a branded statement for any quarter of the loan's life.
• Amortisation schedule — the payment-by-payment interest/principal split, in-app and as a PDF.
• Early-payoff calculator — what paying extra would actually save.
• Receipt scanning (OCR) — Chipkie reads attached receipts and verifies the amounts, which is what earns Silver and Gold approval tiers.
• Court-ready evidence pack — one PDF bundling the signed agreement, the full payment ledger, every receipt, and the complete audit timeline.

Only one of you needs to buy it — either party can add the contract, and the whole loan gets the benefits.

No. You pay each other directly, however you normally would — bank transfer, standing order, cash — and Chipkie records and confirms each payment so the ledger always matches reality. The only money Chipkie processes is the one-off contract fee, handled securely by Stripe.

Yes — Chipkie runs beautifully in any browser, and native iOS and Android apps are currently in beta. The app adds push notifications for payments and reminders, camera capture for receipts, and an optional Face ID / fingerprint lock on the app itself. Everything else works identically to the web app. Contact us if you'd like to join the beta.

Two ways: use the feature requests panel inside the app — you can see and vote on what others have suggested, so good ideas rise — or email us at [email protected]. We love feedback and suggestions.

Just start the loan — your account is created along the way through Create a loan. Choose whether you're the lender or the borrower, then either follow the step-by-step form or let Chipkie's guided setup walk you through it conversationally. You can sign in with email, Google, Facebook, or Apple. Once you've entered the terms and the other person's details, Chipkie emails them an invitation to review and confirm.

The shape of the deal and who's involved:

• the amount, the interest rate (0% is fine), and whether the money has already changed hands,
• the repayment frequency (weekly, fortnightly, or monthly) and start date,
• your details — including your address, which the agreement needs,
• the other person's name and email. Don't worry if you don't know everything about them; they fill in their own details when they accept.

You'll see a live preview of the repayment amount, the number of payments, and the total repayable before anything is created.

Yes — as you choose the rate, Chipkie shows plain-English notes for your market. In the UK that means a note on how interest you receive interacts with your Personal Savings Allowance, and — if you set 0% — a prompt to think about whether this is really a loan or a gift, which matters for inheritance tax planning. Guidance only, drawn from published figures; not tax or legal advice, and it never blocks your loan.

Yes — a free one, and it takes a minute. They get an emailed invitation with a secure link where they review the loan and either confirm it or propose changes, which come back to you to approve. Nothing goes live until you've both agreed. If they don't respond, Chipkie sends a couple of gentle reminders. Sent it to the wrong address? You can correct their email and re-send while the loan is still pending.

No. When you set up another loan with someone you've already had one with, Chipkie offers their details so a repeat loan doesn't cost the same effort as a cold start.

Yes. Either of you can propose changes — the loan re-opens, the other person reviews and confirms, and the schedule is rebuilt. Every version is kept, so there's always a record of what changed and when. If you've signed a contract, the signed document keeps its original terms until you generate and sign a new version.

Yes — a contract can carry up to four signers: the lender, the borrower, and up to two additional signatories such as a co-borrower, a second lender, or a guarantor. If the borrower is under 18, a parent or guardian signs as guarantor — a loan agreement is only binding when signed by an adult.

Not yet, sorry. Chipkie writes the loan under the borrower's local law, so both people need to live in the same supported country (UK, Australia, or the US). Cross-border support is on the roadmap.

A contract makes sure everyone is on the same page about what's being borrowed and how it comes back — and if something goes wrong, it's your proof of the agreement. Courts and mediators care about the same things: a written agreement, a payment record, and dated evidence. The contract gives you the first; Chipkie builds the other two automatically as the loan runs. For anything over £1,000 we think it's the best £3.95 you can spend.

It's designed to be. The agreement is generated from a professionally drafted template, personalised with both parties' names and addresses, the amount, the interest rate and the full repayment schedule, and is governed by the law of England & Wales. Every party e-signs it, it takes effect when the last person signs, and everyone can download the fully executed PDF. Electronic signatures are recognised for agreements like this, and the template requires no witnessing or notarisation. Chipkie provides the template and the record, not legal advice — if your situation is complex, have a solicitor review it.

Once the contract is purchased, Chipkie generates the document and each signer gets their own secure signing link — a minute's work from any device, no printing or scanning. The contract page shows live progress (who's signed, who hasn't), and if someone is dragging their feet you can re-send the signing request yourself. When everyone has signed, both parties are notified and the executed PDF is stored with the loan.

The parties' full names and addresses (set out in Schedule 1), the loan amount, the interest rate, the number, frequency and amount of repayments, the first and last payment dates, when the money changed hands, and the governing law. Your exact loan, not a generic form.

Everyday flexing — an approved payment holiday or reduced-payment arrangement — doesn't invalidate anything: the signed contract keeps its original schedule and Chipkie's audit trail is the reliable record of what you agreed along the way. If the terms genuinely drift from what was signed, Chipkie prompts you to re-contract: a new version is generated with the current terms and signed fresh, and the superseded version is kept for your records. Each new version is a new £3.95 purchase.

The borrower pays the lender directly, as usual — then it gets logged in Chipkie and confirmed by the other person:

• The borrower logs it with Lodge a Payment, optionally attaching proof; the lender confirms with one tap, straight from the email, no login needed.
• Or the lender logs it with record a payment received — useful when the money has landed and the borrower hasn't got to it. The borrower then gets a one-tap "yes, that's right" acknowledgement.

Either way the schedule, balance and history update for both of you, and there's never an argument about what's been paid.

In your dashboard, tap Lodge a Payment, enter the amount (anything from a part-payment up to the outstanding balance), attach proof if you have it, and send. Once confirmed, your loan updates. If you pay more than one instalment's worth, the surplus automatically flows into the next instalments.

Yes, free on every loan. Attach the bank receipt or transfer screenshot when you log the payment — and the lender can add their own "funds received" proof too. Attachments lock once the payment is confirmed, and each is fingerprinted with a checksum, which is what makes the record hold up as evidence later.

Every confirmed payment earns a medal showing how well it's evidenced:

• 🥉 Bronze — confirmed manually by the other party.
• 🥈 Silver — the borrower attached their "funds sent" receipt and Chipkie's receipt scanning verified the amount matches, to the penny.
• 🥇 Gold — the lender also attached their "funds received" receipt and the two cross-match.

Medals appear on every payment in your history and in your exported records, so the more evidence you attach, the stronger your record becomes. Silver and Gold need receipt scanning, part of the premium toolkit.

On contracted loans, Chipkie automatically reads attached receipts — amount, date, reference — and checks them against the logged payment in the background. No extra steps: the lender simply sees "✓ receipt matched" when confirming, and the payment earns its tier.

Absolutely — pay any amount up to the outstanding balance whenever you like, with no early-payoff penalty unless you agreed one between yourselves. On contracted loans the early-payoff calculator shows what extra payments would do: set a recurring extra or a one-off lump sum and see the interest saved, the new payoff date, and how many payments you'd skip — then log the extra payment right from there.

The way banks do it: reducing balance (amortised). Each repayment is the same amount; early on more of it is interest, later more is principal, and the balance lands on exactly zero at the final payment. Interest-free loans are simply the amount split evenly. You see the total repayable before you confirm.

Open View My Loans and click into any loan for the full schedule, every confirmed payment with its approval medal, and the running balance. Downloads:

• Loan summary PDF — a one-page overview (free),
• Payment record PDF — the complete dated ledger (free),
• Verified Repayment Record — the borrower's shareable proof of repayment (free — see below),
• Amortisation schedule PDF, quarterly statements, and tax-ready statements (PDF/CSV) — with the premium toolkit,
• Court-ready evidence pack — the everything-bundle, if it ever comes to that.

A free, shareable certificate proving the borrower has been paying. The borrower issues it themselves from the loan; it carries Chipkie's name, a summary of their repayment history, and a unique code. Anyone they show it to — a landlord, a broker, a family member — can verify it on Chipkie's website with no account, which is what makes it credible rather than just a PDF someone typed.

It can be issued when the loan is fully repaid, or while it's running and up to date, and needs at least one confirmed repayment. A loan that's behind can't issue one until it's caught up — that's exactly what makes it worth something. The record is dated from when the borrower actually paid, not when the lender got round to confirming.

Chipkie handles the calendar so neither of you has to:

• Borrowers get upcoming-payment reminders — you choose the timing (two days before, the morning it's due, or both) and the channel (email, in-app, push, or a combination) in your profile.
• Lenders get notified when a payment is logged, plus a nudge if one is waiting on their confirmation.
• Both of you are kept in the loop on everything else — confirmations, holidays, arrangements and milestones.

There are quiet hours, so Chipkie won't buzz you in the middle of the night. And if the borrower's gone quiet, the lender can tap send a friendly reminder — Chipkie sends it as the neutral party, so it doesn't have to come from you.

Nothing scary — no late fees, no credit-reference reporting, no collectors. A payment counts as overdue the day after it was due, and Chipkie tells both of you so nobody is guessing. If more are missed the reminders step up gradually (three of them, spaced to your payment schedule), and if the loan keeps slipping it's paused: reminders stop and the loan waits quietly. Any confirmed payment — or either of you choosing to re-engage — brings it back.

If money is tight, don't go quiet: request a payment holiday or a reduced-payment arrangement. While either is active you won't be chased at all.

This is one of Chipkie's best touches. While a loan is paused the schedule keeps running, so instalments quietly fall overdue — meaning someone coming back after a long pause used to face the whole pile at once. Instead, Chipkie automatically re-issues the instalments that fell due during the pause at the end of the schedule, so there's somewhere sensible to start paying again.

Nothing is forgiven and nothing is added: the total, the balance and the payoff figure are identical — only the dates move. Arrears from before the pause stay where they are. The lender is told what happened and can undo it if they'd rather not.

Yes. From the loan, tap Request a Holiday, choose which payment it starts from and the length — a week, a fortnight, or a month — and add a short note. The lender is notified and approves or declines. Once approved, the skipped payments move to the end of the loan (the total repayable doesn't change, the loan just finishes later) and no overdue notices go out during the break. You'll get a heads-up a few days before repayments resume.

Ask for a reduced-payment arrangement:

• One-off — covers a single cycle; the shortfall becomes one extra instalment at the end of the loan.
• Ongoing — open-ended smaller payments, with the lender asked every three months whether to continue.

The lender approves either, and while one is active the borrower is never sent overdue reminders. On contracted loans, arrangements are one-off only — an open-ended change can't be squared with a signed agreement.

Chipkie gives you a ladder, so you're never stuck between "do nothing" and "see you in court":

1. Automatic reminders have already been going to both of you.
2. Awkward Chats — Chipkie drafts the hard messages for you, pitched for the situation (a light "did this slip by?" first, firmer later) and sends them on your behalf once you approve each one. You never have to find the words, and they don't come from your number.
3. The hand-off — if payments keep being missed after the full ladder, Chipkie is honest about its limits: we are not a debt collector and won't pretend to be. Instead you get what you'd need to take it further: the court-ready evidence pack — signed agreement, full payment ledger with approval tiers, every receipt with its checksum, and the complete dated timeline — plus a Letter Before Action template prepared in the style the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims expects, with the standard 30-day response window.

Many people find the letter alone resolves it; otherwise it's precisely what the small-claims track (Money Claim Online) or a solicitor will ask for. The evidence pack and letter are part of the premium toolkit and need a signed contract — without one there's no enforceable agreement to demand under, which is a good reason to add the contract early. None of this is legal advice.

Yes, and it's free. A lender can end a live loan three ways:

• Forgive it — you're writing off what's left.
• Settled outside Chipkie — they squared up some other way.
• Close by agreement — you've both simply agreed it's done.

Any remaining instalments are voided, the borrower is notified, and — crucially — Chipkie stops chasing. A loan that's genuinely over should never keep sending reminders, and this is how you tell us. It's recorded in the audit trail so the record shows exactly how the loan ended.

No — most family loans are interest-free and Chipkie fully supports 0%. There's no requirement to charge interest on a private loan between individuals. If you set 0%, it's worth being clear between yourselves whether this is really a loan or a gift — the distinction matters for inheritance tax, and Chipkie will prompt you about it as you set the rate.

Interest you earn on a personal loan counts as savings income, even when the borrower is family. Many lenders owe nothing thanks to the Personal Savings Allowance — currently £1,000 of savings interest tax-free for basic-rate taxpayers, £500 for higher-rate and £0 for additional-rate — but interest above your allowance must be declared to HMRC. The tax-ready statement gives you the exact figure for each tax year. Chipkie doesn't provide tax advice; check with HMRC or your adviser.

Part of the premium toolkit, for every year of the loan's life. For each UK tax year (6 April to 5 April) you get a per-loan summary — opening and closing balances, interest actually received (the cash-basis figure that matters), principal received, and lifetime totals — exportable as a branded PDF or CSV from My Loans → Export Tax Summary, with the relevant UK notes included. Lenders see interest income; borrowers see interest paid.

Yes — the privacy policy is here and the terms and conditions are here.

Yes, and by design Chipkie holds less than you might think: card payments are processed by Stripe (card details never touch Chipkie's servers), e-signatures are handled by SignWell, receipts live in private storage served only to the people on that loan, and the email links that let you confirm things without logging in are cryptographically signed and time-limited. On the mobile app you can add a Face ID / fingerprint lock. Account data is hosted securely by Chipkie Pty Ltd in Australia — details in the privacy policy.

To run your loans — that's it. We don't sell your data. The specifics are in the privacy policy and terms and conditions.

Every Chipkie email has an unsubscribe link at the bottom — one click and marketing-style updates stop; most email apps can also do it for you from the message header. You can fine-tune what you receive from the email-preferences link. Essential account emails (password resets, email verification) are always delivered, otherwise you could never recover your account. Still stuck? Email [email protected].

Reset it using Forgot password. If you signed up with Google, Facebook or Apple, just use that button to sign back in.

Reset your password immediately using the link above, then email [email protected] and we'll investigate.

Check your junk or spam folder and mark Chipkie as safe — adding our sending address to your contacts helps. Still nothing? Email [email protected].

Email [email protected] — we're a small team and we read everything.

You can delete your account from your profile, or email [email protected] and we'll take care of it. If you're part of a live loan, get in touch — we'll make sure the other person's records stay intact.