Loan Glossary

Loan terminology in short

Credit contracts are not written to be obscure, but they are written in a vocabulary that assumes familiarity — and a handful of those words carry most of the money. Confusing interest with APRC, or a payment default with a poor credit record, leads to decisions that look reasonable and cost real amounts. This section defines the terms that appear in Estonian consumer credit agreements and, more usefully, explains which ones actually change what you pay.

The rest of this page is arranged so that you can stop at any point and still have a usable answer: first the parameters, then what the product costs in euros, then who it actually suits and what happens if the application is declined. If a term is unfamiliar, the loan glossary defines it, and side-by-side conditions are in the loan comparison.

Key parameters at a glance

The table sums up the range you can expect for loan terminology from licensed providers in Estonia. It describes the market, not a personal offer: your own figures follow from the creditworthiness assessment that every lender is legally required to carry out.

Read the APRC column first and the interest column second. Interest alone omits the contract fee and any monthly administration charge, which is exactly where two offers with an identical headline rate stop being equivalent. Put your own amount and term into the loan calculator before comparing anything.

The Estonian market in numbers

The figures below are measured from our own catalogue as of 1 August 2026. They come from price lists the providers publish themselves, and they are recompiled every time the site is built.

• 11 providers are listed in total, of which 11 offer loan terminology or a directly comparable product.
• The amount range across those providers runs from €50 to €250,000; the wide spread reflects different target customers, not different generosity.
• Terms run from 1 to 84 months. A longer term lowers the monthly payment and raises the total cost — always both at once.
• 11 of 11 providers disclose an APRC range publicly. Where a provider does not, we leave the field empty rather than estimate; the full list is in the comparison table.
• Methodology and the limits of each source are described in the research section.

What it costs in practice

Three scenarios at the same nominal rate of 24% per year, so that the effect of the term is visible on its own. The calculation is annuity-based and simplified — it shows the logic, it does not replace a contract.

Note what the middle column does to the last one. Doubling the term makes the monthly payment look comfortable while the cost of credit grows — the loan has not become cheaper, it has become longer. This is the single most common mistake we see, and it is the reason the comparison sorts on total cost rather than on monthly instalment.

Representative example under the Estonian Advertising Act § 29: a credit of €2,500.00 for 24 months at 24% annual interest, contract fee €0.00, monthly payment €132.18, total amount payable €3,172.27, APRC approximately 24.9%. The final figures are set by the creditor after assessing your creditworthiness. 123laen OÜ is not a creditor and not a credit intermediary — see about us.

Advantages and drawbacks of this tool

What it does well

• the entries are tied to the Estonian original — KKM, maksehäire, käendaja — so the word can be matched to the contract in front of you rather than to a general English definition
• each definition says what the term changes in money, not only what it means, which is the part that decides whether it matters to you
• terms that are routinely confused with one another are defined next to each other instead of alphabetically far apart

Drawbacks and where it stops

• a glossary explains vocabulary, it does not interpret your contract: identical words can carry different mechanics in two providers' terms
• legislation and market practice move, and definitions written for the general case will not capture an unusual clause
• it cannot tell you whether a clause is unfavourable — for that you need the two documents side by side, not a definition
• it is not legal advice, and where money is already at stake a supervisory body or a lawyer answers a question a glossary cannot

If a creditor refuses your application

Vocabulary is worth having precisely at the moment of a refusal, because the wording of the notice is where the reason hides. "The decision was based on an assessment of creditworthiness" is the statutory formula, not an explanation; "the decision relied on a query to a database" is a different statement, and it obliges the creditor to name the register used. Those two sentences point in different directions and are routinely read as the same thing.

Distinguish a payment default from a thin credit record as well: an active entry in Creditinfo can be checked and, once settled, leaves the active part of the register, whereas simply having little borrowing history cannot be repaired at all — only accumulated. Understanding which of the two applies decides whether waiting helps or whether something has to be settled first. Where the entry itself is wrong, the correction is made by the party that submitted the data, not by the creditor that read it, and it takes weeks rather than days.

Rules that protect you

Consumer credit in Estonia is regulated, and the protections apply automatically — you do not have to negotiate for them. A creditor must hold a licence from the Financial Supervision Authority; lending without one is not a cheaper alternative but an arrangement in which consumer protection does not function. The licence is verifiable in the public register before you sign anything.

• You may withdraw from a consumer credit contract within 14 days, returning the principal plus interest for the days actually used.
• You may repay early at any time, with the interest portion reduced accordingly.
• You must receive the repayment schedule and the APRC before signing, not after.
• The creditor must assess your ability to repay; this obligation cannot be waived by contract.
• Credit advertising must state the APRC and a representative example — the reason one appears above on this page.

If a dispute arises, the order matters: a written complaint to the creditor first, then the Consumer Disputes Committee, which handles cases free of charge on the documents. The Financial Supervision Authority does not settle individual money disputes but does act on breaches of the rules themselves.

How these figures were compiled

Every number on this page comes from a provider's own published price list, collected when the site is built rather than copied once and left to age. We do not ask providers for portal-only conditions and we do not publish figures that are not publicly verifiable: anything here can be found on the company's own website. The same procedure applies to every entry behind the comparison and to the products listed under quick loans, personal loans, credit accounts, credit cards and credit lines.

What we deliberately do not calculate is approval probability or the rate you personally would be offered. Both depend on a creditworthiness assessment we never see and should not see. That is why APRC is shown as a full range rather than by its attractive lower edge — the low end normally applies to the largest amount over the longest term for an applicant with a spotless record. To turn a range into concrete euros, use the calculator; to understand the terms in the contract, use the glossary.

The terms that change what you pay

Four terms account for nearly all the difference between a well-chosen and a poorly-chosen credit agreement. APRC, because it is the comparison unit. Term, because it drives total cost more than the rate does. Contract fee, because it is charged once and is often absent from the headline. And the late payment penalty, because it is the number you will meet if a month goes wrong, and it varies between providers far more than interest rates do.

Everything else in a contract is either regulatory boilerplate or a detail that applies in narrow circumstances. That is not an argument for skipping the rest — it is an argument for reading those four first, so that the remainder is read with the economics already understood. The corresponding figures for each provider sit in the comparison table.

A fifth term deserves a mention because of how often it is misread: "from". A rate "from 0%" or an APRC "from 5.9%" describes the best case for the best-qualified applicant on the largest amount over the longest term. It is a legitimate statement and a poor basis for comparison, which is why full ranges rather than lower bounds are published here.

Vocabulary specific to the Estonian market

Several terms in Estonian credit documents have no direct equivalent in English-language material and are worth knowing in the original. KKM — krediidi kulukuse määr — is the APRC, and it is the abbreviation you will see on offer pages and in advertising. Maksehäire is a registered payment default. Krediidiandja is a licensed creditor, distinct from a krediidivahendaja, a credit intermediary that arranges credit but does not issue it.

That last distinction has practical consequences. A creditor makes the lending decision and holds the contract; an intermediary passes your application on. This site is neither: 123laen OÜ operates a comparison and advertising platform, makes no credit decisions and forwards no application data, as set out on the about page. You apply directly with the provider in every case.

Two supervisory names recur as well. Finantsinspektsioon, the Financial Supervision Authority, licenses creditors and maintains the public register in which a licence can be verified. Creditinfo operates the payment default register that most assessments query. Neither decides individual applications, but both shape the environment in which decisions are made.

Where terminology is used to sell rather than to describe

Some phrasing is common enough to be worth flagging. "No refusals" cannot be literally true: assessing repayment ability is a statutory obligation, and a provider that never refuses is either not assessing or not saying what it means. "No documents" usually means no paper documents, with an automated read of your bank statement doing the same work faster. "Money in 15 minutes" describes the transfer, not the decision, and depends on which bank receives it.

None of these are necessarily dishonest — most describe something real in compressed form. The risk is that they answer a different question from the one the borrower is asking, and the gap only becomes apparent after signing. Reading them against the APRC and the representative example, both of which are legally required in credit advertising, resolves the ambiguity quickly.

The most reliable defence is to compare the offer on terms you have chosen rather than on terms the advertisement has chosen for you: your amount, your term, total payable. Run both through the calculator, then check the result against the ranges published for quick loans and personal loans to see whether the offer is actually competitive.

Terms that describe the same thing under different names

Product naming in this market is marketing rather than taxonomy, and several labels describe an identical mechanism. A credit account, a credit line and the limit behind a credit card are all revolving credit: an approved ceiling, drawn and repaid repeatedly, with interest on the outstanding balance. The differences that matter sit in the individual contract — fees, minimum payments, whether a card is attached — not in the category name.

The same applies at the other end. A quick loan, a small loan, a micro loan and an SMS loan are all short-term unsecured consumer credit, distinguished mainly by amount and by how the product was originally sold. Choosing between them by name rather than by APRC is how borrowers end up paying more for a difference that does not exist, and it is why the comparison spans categories rather than sitting inside one.

How to check a term you do not recognise

When a contract uses a word that is not defined above, three checks resolve it quickly. First, look for it in the pre-contractual information sheet, which a creditor must provide before signing and which uses standardised wording. Second, check whether it appears in the APRC calculation — if a charge is not included there, ask why, since mandatory costs belong in it by law. Third, ask the creditor directly and in writing, which both gets an answer and creates a record.

The one thing not to do is sign and resolve it afterwards. The fourteen-day withdrawal right exists precisely for that situation and is worth using, but it is a remedy rather than a plan. If a term is unclear at signature and the creditor cannot explain it plainly, that is information about the contract, and comparing the offer against the ranges in the table before committing costs nothing.

Frequently asked questions

What is the single most important term to understand?

APRC — krediidi kulukuse määr, or KKM in Estonian documents. It is the only figure that combines interest with every mandatory fee into one annualised number, which makes it the only figure on which two offers can be compared directly. Everything else in a contract is detail by comparison.

What is the difference between interest and APRC?

Interest is the price of the borrowed money alone. APRC adds the contract fee, any monthly administration charge and every other unavoidable cost, then expresses the total as an annual percentage. Two offers can advertise the same interest rate and differ by several percentage points of APRC, which is precisely why advertising leads with interest.

What does "annuity" mean on a repayment schedule?

That every monthly payment is identical in size while its internal split changes: interest dominates the early payments and principal the later ones. The alternative, a declining-balance schedule, starts with higher payments that fall over time. Estonian consumer credit is almost always annuity-based.

Is a payment default the same as a bad credit history?

No, and the distinction matters. A payment default is a specific registered entry arising from an unpaid obligation. Credit history is the broader record of how you have serviced obligations over time. An active default is close to disqualifying for most credit; a closed historical one, with stable payments since, is treated far more leniently.

What is a debt service ratio?

The share of your net income already committed to servicing debt. Creditors calculate it before every decision and refuse applications that would push it past their internal ceiling. It is the constraint that decides most larger applications — more often than the credit record does, which is covered further in the research section.