Terms of Service

LendRate Africa

Effective Date: 1st May 2026

Website: lendrate.africa

Contact: info@lendrate.africa

1. Introduction

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) govern your access to and use of lendrate.africa, the LendRate platform, dashboards, software, tools, services, and related products provided by LendRate Africa (“LendRate,” “we,” “us,” or “our”).

By accessing or using the platform, you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree with these Terms, you must not use the platform.

These Terms apply together with our Privacy Policy and any other agreements, policies, transaction documents, user instructions, or platform rules that apply to your use of LendRate.

2. About LendRate Africa

LendRate Africa provides a transaction-led financing platform that connects SMEs seeking financing for confirmed purchase orders with Investors seeking structured opportunities linked to real business transactions.

The platform may support SME onboarding, Investor onboarding, KYC and KYB workflows, purchase order review, transaction assessment, opportunity listing, capital allocation, payment processing, escrow or custody workflows through approved banking or payment partners, settlement, reconciliation, reporting, and related operational workflows.

Unless expressly stated in a separate written agreement, LendRate is a technology and transaction-management platform. LendRate does not automatically act as a bank, deposit-taking institution, licensed investment adviser, credit bureau, fund manager, trustee, guarantor, or direct lender.

LendRate does not guarantee financing approval, Investor participation, repayment, returns, capital protection, liquidity, SME performance, buyer payment, or successful completion of any transaction unless expressly stated in a separate written agreement.

3. Eligibility

To use the platform, you must:

  • Be at least 18 years old.
  • Have legal capacity to enter into binding agreements.
  • Provide accurate and complete information.
  • Use the platform only for lawful purposes.
  • Comply with these Terms and all applicable laws.

If you use the platform on behalf of a company, SME, Investor, organisation, bank, payment partner, escrow partner, custody partner, or other entity, you confirm that you are authorised to bind that entity and act on its behalf.

LendRate may refuse, suspend, restrict, or terminate access where eligibility requirements are not met or where we reasonably believe that platform access may create legal, financial, regulatory, operational, reputational, or security risk.

4. User Roles

The platform may support different user roles, including:

  • Super administrators.
  • Platform administrators.
  • SME account owners, staff, and authorised representatives.
  • Investors and authorised Investor representatives.
  • Banking, payment, escrow, custody, settlement, verification, or reporting partner users where applicable.
  • Support, operations, compliance, or reporting users.

Your access rights depend on your assigned role, organisation, subscription, user permissions, verification status, transaction involvement, and platform settings.

You must only access information and perform actions that you are authorised to access or perform.

5. Account Registration

You may be required to create an account and verify your identity, business details, contact details, or user authority.

You agree to:

  • Provide truthful, accurate, complete, and up-to-date information.
  • Keep your login credentials secure.
  • Not share your account with unauthorised persons.
  • Ensure that only authorised persons access your account.
  • Notify LendRate immediately of suspicious activity, unauthorised access, suspected fraud, or misuse.
  • Accept responsibility for activity carried out under your account.

We may suspend, restrict, or terminate accounts where information is false, misleading, incomplete, fraudulent, outdated, unauthorised, or in breach of these Terms.

6. Verification and OTP

We may use OTP, email verification, phone verification, KYC checks, KYB checks, document verification, identity verification, business verification, payment verification, or other authentication methods.

You agree not to bypass, tamper with, misuse, interfere with, or attempt to defeat any verification, authentication, security, KYC, KYB, payment, or transaction review process.

We may refuse, delay, restrict, suspend, or terminate access where verification fails, where suspicious activity is detected, where required information is missing, or where regulatory, security, operational, financial crime, or risk concerns arise.

7. Platform Account Responsibilities

All users are responsible for maintaining accurate account information and using the platform lawfully and responsibly.

Users must:

  • Provide accurate registration, identity, business, KYC, KYB, payment, and contact information.
  • Ensure that any person accessing an account is authorised to do so.
  • Keep login credentials secure and confidential.
  • Notify LendRate immediately of any unauthorised access, suspected fraud, or misuse of an account.
  • Use the platform only for lawful purposes and in accordance with these Terms.
  • Not upload false, misleading, fraudulent, unlawful, or unauthorised information.
  • Not interfere with platform security, transaction workflows, payment flows, reporting, reconciliation, or system integrity.
  • Comply with all applicable laws, regulations, tax obligations, reporting requirements, and internal approvals that apply to their use of the platform.

LendRate may suspend, restrict, or terminate access where we reasonably believe that an account has been misused, compromised, used unlawfully, or used in breach of these Terms.

8. SME Responsibilities

SMEs using LendRate to request, access, manage, or repay LPO financing are responsible for the accuracy, legality, and completeness of all information and documents submitted through the platform.

SMEs agree to:

  • Provide accurate business, ownership, director, shareholder, tax, financial, KYC, KYB, and contact information.
  • Upload genuine, valid, complete, and current documents.
  • Submit only genuine purchase orders, LPOs, contracts, invoices, buyer information, and supporting transaction documents.
  • Ensure they have the right to submit buyer, customer, supplier, employee, shareholder, director, and transaction-related information to the platform.
  • Use financing only for the approved transaction purpose, where applicable.
  • Deliver goods or services in line with the relevant purchase order, contract, or transaction structure.
  • Repay amounts due in accordance with the applicable financing, repayment, or transaction terms.
  • Notify LendRate promptly of any material changes affecting the business, ownership, buyer relationship, purchase order, fulfilment timeline, delivery capacity, payment expectation, repayment capacity, or transaction risk.
  • Not submit fraudulent, altered, misleading, unauthorised, or incomplete information.
  • Cooperate with reasonable verification, monitoring, reporting, recovery, reconciliation, or compliance requests.

LendRate may facilitate SME onboarding, transaction assessment, opportunity structuring, financing workflows, records management, reporting, and repayment tracking, but LendRate does not guarantee financing approval, Investor participation, buyer payment, or successful transaction completion.

9. Investor Responsibilities

Where Investor features are available or enabled, Investors are responsible for reviewing and understanding each investment opportunity before committing funds through the platform.

Investors agree to:

  • Provide accurate identity, KYC, payment, tax, account, and contact information.
  • Ensure they have the authority, capacity, and legal right to commit funds through the platform.
  • Review opportunity details, transaction structure, repayment terms, risk information, supporting documentation, fees, and expected timelines before participating.
  • Understand that investment opportunities may involve repayment delays, buyer payment risk, SME performance risk, operational risk, liquidity risk, default risk, fraud risk, regulatory risk, and possible loss of capital.
  • Use the platform only for lawful investment, funding, or capital allocation purposes.
  • Not use the platform for money laundering, fraud, illegal investment activity, unauthorised financial activity, or any prohibited purpose.
  • Maintain confidentiality of SME, buyer, transaction, repayment, platform, and reporting information accessed through the platform.
  • Comply with any applicable tax, reporting, regulatory, internal approval, or investment suitability obligations that apply to their participation.
  • Seek independent professional advice where necessary before committing funds.

Unless expressly stated in a separate written agreement, LendRate does not guarantee returns, repayment, profit, liquidity, capital protection, investment performance, buyer payment, SME performance, or successful completion of any transaction.

10. Subscriptions, Fees, and Payments

Some services may require payment of subscription fees, onboarding fees, transaction fees, service charges, success fees, platform fees, processing fees, or other applicable fees.

You agree that:

  • Fees must be paid when due.
  • Access may be restricted, suspended, or terminated for non-payment.
  • Payment processing may be handled by third-party providers.
  • Banking, payment, escrow, custody, settlement, or transaction charges may apply.
  • Taxes, levies, withholding tax, transaction charges, or statutory deductions may apply.
  • Fees are non-refundable unless expressly stated in writing or required by law.

We may change our fees by providing notice through the platform, email, invoice, updated terms, transaction documentation, or other reasonable method.

11. Fund Flows, Escrow, Custody, Settlement, and Reconciliation

LendRate may support payment, escrow, custody, settlement, reconciliation, and reporting workflows through approved banking, payment, escrow, custody, or settlement partners.

Where applicable:

  • Funds may be collected, held, processed, settled, repaid, or reconciled through approved third-party providers.
  • LendRate may provide transaction records, dashboards, reports, reconciliation records, and operational tools to support these workflows.
  • Timing of payment, settlement, reconciliation, or withdrawal may depend on third-party providers, banks, payment networks, escrow arrangements, verification requirements, transaction documentation, and compliance checks.
  • LendRate may delay, restrict, reverse, or refuse processing where required for fraud prevention, compliance, verification, risk management, legal obligations, platform integrity, or partner requirements.

LendRate is not responsible for delays, losses, charges, reversals, errors, or failures caused by third-party banking, payment, escrow, custody, settlement, or infrastructure providers, except where liability cannot be excluded by law.

12. Platform Access and Availability

We aim to provide reliable platform access but do not guarantee uninterrupted, error-free, secure, or always-available service.

The platform may be unavailable or affected by:

  • Maintenance.
  • Security updates.
  • Server downtime.
  • Internet or hosting disruptions.
  • Payment provider downtime.
  • Banking, escrow, custody, or settlement partner downtime.
  • Third-party service failures.
  • Force majeure events.
  • Regulatory or legal requirements.
  • Cybersecurity incidents or attempted attacks.
  • Operational changes or platform upgrades.

We are not liable for losses caused by temporary unavailability, delays, downtime, service interruptions, data delays, or third-party system failures, except where liability cannot be excluded by law.

13. Acceptable Use

You must not:

  • Use the platform for unlawful, fraudulent, abusive, deceptive, harmful, or unauthorised activities.
  • Upload false, misleading, defamatory, obscene, illegal, fraudulent, or unauthorised content.
  • Submit fake, altered, duplicated, or misleading purchase orders, LPOs, invoices, contracts, KYC documents, KYB documents, payment confirmations, or transaction records.
  • Attempt unauthorised access to accounts, servers, databases, dashboards, documents, payment systems, transaction records, or partner systems.
  • Interfere with platform security, verification systems, performance, reporting, reconciliation, or transaction workflows.
  • Reverse engineer, copy, scrape, resell, sublicense, or exploit the platform without written permission.
  • Introduce malware, viruses, harmful code, bots, crawlers, or automated scraping tools.
  • Use another person’s credentials.
  • Circumvent access controls, payment systems, KYC checks, KYB checks, risk controls, verification processes, or transaction monitoring.
  • Use the platform to harass, threaten, exploit, discriminate against, or harm others.
  • Use the platform for money laundering, terrorism financing, fraud, corruption, sanctions evasion, market abuse, illegal lending, illegal investment activity, or any prohibited financial activity.

We may investigate suspected misuse and may suspend, restrict, report, or terminate access where appropriate.

14. Data and Privacy

Your use of the platform is also governed by our Privacy Policy. By using the platform, you agree that we may collect, use, process, store, disclose, and protect personal data as described in that Policy.

You must ensure that any personal data, business data, buyer data, customer data, director data, shareholder data, employee data, supplier data, transaction data, or third-party information you upload or submit to the platform has been collected lawfully and that you have the necessary authority, consent, or legal basis to submit it.

You are responsible for ensuring that information submitted through your account is accurate, lawful, authorised, and not misleading.

15. Confidentiality

Users with access to SME, Investor, buyer, customer, transaction, repayment, settlement, reconciliation, platform, or partner information must treat that information as confidential.

You must not disclose, sell, misuse, export, copy, download, share, or use confidential information except as authorised, required for platform use, permitted by the relevant party, or required by law.

Confidentiality obligations continue after account closure, transaction completion, suspension, or termination of access.

16. Intellectual Property

All rights in the LendRate platform, software, interface, workflows, designs, logos, content, documentation, code, databases, dashboards, reports, processes, business methods, and related materials belong to LendRate or its licensors, unless otherwise stated.

You are granted a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to use the platform for authorised purposes only.

You must not copy, resell, sublicense, modify, distribute, reverse engineer, reproduce, or create derivative works from the platform without written permission.

Nothing in these Terms transfers ownership of LendRate intellectual property to you.

17. User Content

You retain ownership of information, documents, data, or content you upload to the platform.

However, you grant LendRate a limited right to host, process, display, transmit, store, back up, analyse, verify, use, and share that content as necessary to provide the services, support transactions, perform verification, manage payment workflows, support settlement and reconciliation, generate reports, comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce these Terms.

You confirm that your uploaded content:

  • Is accurate and lawful.
  • Does not infringe third-party rights.
  • Does not violate any law or agreement.
  • Has been submitted with all required authority, permissions, and consent.

We may remove, restrict, or refuse content that we reasonably believe is unlawful, misleading, fraudulent, unauthorised, harmful, or in breach of these Terms.

18. Third-Party Services

The platform may integrate with or rely on third-party services, including banking partners, payment processors, escrow providers, custody providers, settlement providers, email providers, SMS providers, hosting providers, verification providers, analytics tools, cloud services, and security tools.

We are not responsible for third-party downtime, errors, pricing changes, processing delays, data handling, service failures, account restrictions, or technical issues.

Your use of third-party services may be subject to their own terms, privacy policies, fees, limits, and operational rules.

19. No Financial Advice

Information on the platform is provided for operational, administrative, transaction-management, and informational purposes only.

Nothing on the platform should be treated as legal, financial, tax, investment, accounting, credit, business, or regulatory advice.

Users should seek independent professional advice before making financing, investment, tax, legal, accounting, or business decisions.

LendRate does not recommend that any user participate in a specific financing request, investment opportunity, transaction, SME, buyer, or repayment structure unless expressly stated in a separate written agreement.

20. Risk Disclaimer

SME financing, LPO financing, purchase order transactions, funding, capital allocation, and investment activities involve risk.

These risks may include:

  • Default risk.
  • Delayed repayment.
  • Buyer payment delays.
  • Buyer non-payment.
  • SME non-performance.
  • Delivery or fulfilment failure.
  • Fraud risk.
  • Loss of capital.
  • Liquidity risk.
  • Regulatory risk.
  • Operational or technology risk.
  • Payment processing delays.
  • Escrow, custody, settlement, or banking delays.
  • Inaccurate or misleading user-submitted information.
  • Disputes between SMEs, buyers, Investors, or other transaction parties.
  • Changes in law, regulation, taxation, or market conditions.

LendRate does not guarantee repayment, returns, creditworthiness, financing approval, investment outcomes, buyer payment, SME performance, transaction completion, or preservation of capital unless expressly agreed in writing.

Users participate in transactions at their own risk and should review all available information before making decisions.

21. Suspension and Termination

We may suspend, restrict, or terminate access where:

  • You breach these Terms.
  • You fail to pay applicable fees.
  • You provide false, misleading, incomplete, fraudulent, or unauthorised information.
  • Your account is used for suspected fraud or unlawful activity.
  • Required verification fails.
  • You misuse the platform.
  • You interfere with platform security, payment workflows, reporting, reconciliation, or transaction processes.
  • We are required to do so by law, court order, regulator, payment provider, banking partner, escrow partner, custody partner, security provider, or other competent authority.
  • Continued access may create legal, financial, regulatory, reputational, operational, or security risk.

You may stop using the platform at any time. Termination does not affect accrued obligations, outstanding payments, confidentiality obligations, repayment obligations, dispute obligations, indemnities, legal rights, or obligations intended to survive termination.

22. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, LendRate will not be liable for:

  • Indirect, incidental, special, punitive, or consequential losses.
  • Loss of profits, revenue, business, goodwill, data, opportunity, or anticipated savings.
  • Losses caused by third-party service providers.
  • Losses caused by inaccurate, incomplete, fraudulent, or misleading user-submitted data.
  • SME default, SME non-performance, buyer non-payment, buyer delay, or fulfilment failure.
  • Investor decisions, investment losses, delayed repayment, or loss of capital.
  • Unauthorised access caused by user negligence or credential misuse.
  • Platform downtime, technical interruptions, system delays, or data delays.
  • Payment, banking, escrow, custody, settlement, or reconciliation delays outside our reasonable control.
  • Regulatory, tax, legal, or business consequences arising from user decisions.

Our total liability, where liability cannot be excluded, will be limited to the amount paid by you to LendRate for the specific service giving rise to the claim during the three months before the claim, unless otherwise required by law.

Nothing in these Terms excludes liability that cannot be excluded under applicable law.

23. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless LendRate, its directors, employees, contractors, partners, affiliates, service providers, and agents from claims, losses, damages, penalties, costs, and expenses arising from:

  • Your breach of these Terms.
  • Your unlawful use of the platform.
  • Fraudulent, inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading information you provide.
  • Your violation of third-party rights.
  • Your misuse of personal data.
  • Your financing, funding, investment, transaction, repayment, buyer, customer, or business activities.
  • Regulatory breaches caused by your operations.
  • Tax, reporting, licensing, or internal approval obligations applicable to you.
  • Claims brought by third parties arising from information, documents, or transactions submitted through your account.
  • Misuse of platform data, confidential information, or transaction information.

24. Force Majeure

We are not responsible for delays or failure to perform caused by events beyond our reasonable control, including natural disasters, internet outages, power failures, government action, regulatory changes, cyberattacks, labour disruptions, war, civil unrest, terrorism, pandemics, payment provider downtime, banking partner downtime, escrow or custody partner downtime, hosting failures, or third-party infrastructure failures.

25. Changes to the Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time.

Updated Terms will be posted on lendrate.africa or communicated through the platform, email, dashboard notice, or other reasonable channels.

Continued use of the platform after changes means you accept the updated Terms.

26. Governing Law and Dispute Resolution

These Terms are governed by the laws of Kenya.

Where a dispute arises, the parties should first attempt to resolve it through good-faith negotiations.

If the dispute is not resolved through negotiation, it may be referred to mediation, arbitration, or the competent courts of Kenya, depending on the applicable agreement, transaction documentation, and nature of the dispute.

Nothing in this section prevents LendRate from seeking urgent, interim, injunctive, or protective relief where necessary.

27. Contact

For questions about these Terms, contact:

LendRate Africa

Email: info@lendrate.africa

Website: lendrate.africa