What a loan tape is
One row per loan at a stated cut-off date. What the file has to carry, how the fields change by asset class, and why a tape without a data dictionary cannot be checked.
A loan tape is the loan level file behind a credit portfolio: one row per loan at a stated cut-off date, with columns for identity, terms, borrower, collateral, balances and payment behaviour. Twenty-four columns will get a fintech a term sheet. The European consumer template runs to 69 fields, and the same word covers both.
A loan tape is one row per loan, and everything else in a data room is a claim about it
The file carries, at a minimum, origination date, original amount, current outstanding, term, contractual rate, amortisation type, days past due, restructuring flag and date, product type, borrower location and repayment method. The data request we send a lender asks for exactly that list before it asks anything about yield, and asks for it as a separate file rather than as a page inside a deck.
Authority in that file comes from two properties, and neither of them is the column count. The rows are emitted by a system that recorded an actual contract and an actual payment, and the whole file is stated as of a date, so every number computed from it can be recomputed by somebody else. A deck asserts. A tape can be checked.
What one row means in each, and who asks for it.
| File | One row is | It answers | Who asks for it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Loan tape | one loan, at a stated cut-off date | what is outstanding right now, loan by loan | a fund, a warehouse lender, a rating agency |
| Payment tape | one payment received | whether the loan tape can be believed | the analyst rebuilding your delinquency and yield |
| Bid tape | one loan offered for sale | what the population is worth to a buyer | a whole loan purchaser, usually with borrower identity stripped |
| Servicing tape | one loan being transferred | how collection continues without the borrower noticing | an incoming servicer or a backup servicer |
| Remittance or investor report | one period, not one loan | what was collected and how it was distributed | noteholders after a deal has closed |
Only the loan tape and the payment tape are loan level records of a book you still own. A bid tape prices a population somebody is selling, a servicing tape moves collection to a new operator, and an investor report is one period rather than one loan. Sending the wrong one costs a diligence cycle before anybody reads a number.
There is no single loan tape standard, there are four layers, and a fund asks for a subset of one
Regulatory schemas sit at the top and they are the widest, because they are written to be enumerated in law rather than negotiated. The SEC asset level schedule under Regulation AB II lists 282 fields for a residential mortgage, 159 for a commercial mortgage and 72 for an auto loan, and the European templates in Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2020/1224 list 69 fields for a consumer exposure and 121 for a corporate one once collateral is counted.
Rating agencies sit one layer down, and they ask for less width and more history. European DataWarehouse built its extended template with Moody's and S&P Global Ratings to carry the fields the agencies still needed after the regulatory template dropped them, and HR Ratings expects originator specific cohort performance rather than a snapshot of today.
The working private credit tape is far narrower than either regulatory layer. Finley publishes a consumer template of 24 columns, our own published data request asks a lender for a twelve field minimum before anything else is discussed, and a warehouse credit agreement from 2002 goes narrower still, naming eight fields in the transmission that actually moves the money.
The local reporting layer is the one lenders forget they already have. A regulated Mexican lender files CNBV reports C-0430 and C-0431 every month, 51 columns each, on a stable credit identifier, which means the loan level data exists in the system long before anybody asks for a tape.
So the distance between a lender's current file and an institutional tape is almost never underwriting practice. About 102 columns of loan level data already sit inside a regulated Mexican book by obligation, per the CNBV instructivo updated on 23 January 2026, and the lender still cannot hand over one file with a dictionary attached. The gap is an export, and an export can be built inside a quarter.
the working minimum a first tape has to carry
Finley consumer template, 2022. The European consumer annex has 69.
Loan level field counts, each taken from the primary document, with the date of the version counted.
| Schema | Loan level fields | Version counted |
|---|---|---|
| Warehouse advance minimum, United States credit agreement | 8 | 21 March 2002 |
| Finley consumer loan tape template | 24 | 30 March 2022 |
| Fannie Mae acquisition plus performance, 2016 layouts | 50 | 20 June 2016 |
| SEC Schedule AL, debt securities | 60 | eCFR as read 5 August 2026 |
| ESMA Annex VI, consumer exposures | 69 | 1 November 2024 |
| SEC Schedule AL, auto loans | 72 | eCFR as read 5 August 2026 |
| CNBV R04 C-0430 plus C-0431, commercial credit | 102 | 23 January 2026 |
| Fannie Mae single family, current single file layout | 108 | 26 May 2026 |
| ESMA Annex IV, corporate exposures with collateral | 121 | 1 November 2024 |
| SEC Schedule AL, commercial mortgages | 159 | eCFR as read 5 August 2026 |
| SEC Schedule AL, residential mortgages | 282 | eCFR as read 5 August 2026 |
A lender who says it cannot produce a tape and a fund that says the tape is thin are often describing different schemas. Eight fields move money in a warehouse; 24 win a term sheet; 69 to 121 satisfy a European regulator; 282 satisfy the SEC for a residential mortgage.
Fields differ by asset class, and the difference is wider than most lenders expect
A consumer tape and a commercial tape are not the same file with different labels on the columns. The European consumer annex asks for employment status, primary income, how that income was verified and whether repayment is assigned from a salary or a pension, while the corporate annex asks for industry code, enterprise size, revenue, total debt and EBITDA, per EU 2020/1224 as restated for the United Kingdom on 1 November 2024.
Asset class also decides how much history has to travel with the file. Fannie Mae publishes a single family loan performance layout of 108 fields as of 26 May 2026, and it is the only rating grade schema anyone can copy without a licence, which makes it the cheapest starting template for a lender who has to begin somewhere and has no counsel to ask.
What the same block of the tape asks for, by asset class.
| Block | Consumer book | Commercial or SME book |
|---|---|---|
| Borrower | employment status, primary income, how the income was verified, whether repayment is assigned from a salary or a pension | industry code, enterprise size, revenue, total debt, EBITDA, enterprise value, date of the financials |
| Collateral | often none at all, and the file has to say so explicitly rather than leave it blank | security type, charge type, lien, current and original valuation with method and date, guarantor |
| Performance | days in arrears, arrears balance, account status, restructuring flag and date | the same, plus default amount, default date, allocated losses, cumulative recoveries and recovery source |
| Field count | 69 in the European consumer annex, 72 in the SEC auto schedule | 121 in the European corporate annex with collateral, 159 in the SEC commercial mortgage schedule |
The blocks are the same and the contents are not, which is why a consumer file re-labelled for a commercial book fails on the borrower block first. Build the block list from the asset class the loans actually belong to, then map your columns into it.
A tape without a data dictionary is not a smaller tape, it is an unverified one
A dictionary is a named deliverable on a fund's request list rather than a courtesy. One published diligence checklist asks the lender to «Include a data dictionary explaining all codes, column headings, and non-obvious terms», and a second lists «Clear data dictionary and field definitions» beside loan level coverage and historical performance among the things to prepare before the raise.
Without one, the reader cannot tell an empty cell from a zero, a restructured loan from a renewed one, or days past due counted from the missed instalment from days past due counted from the last payment received. None of those is a credit question, and every one of them changes the delinquency the analyst computes from your file.
Absence has a grammar, and the grammar is worth adopting well outside Europe. Annex I of EU 2020/1224 defines ND1 to ND5: ND1 means the field was never collected at underwriting and changes the credit assumption permanently, while ND2 and ND3 mean the data exists elsewhere and needs only a delivery date. An undeclared blank is priced as ND1, because from outside there is nothing to tell the two apart.
Calculated fields do not travel, because the receiving side recomputes them from raw columns
Tape cracking is the name the market gives to the step before pricing, structuring or capital commitment, and its first move is «standardizing loan tapes into a consistent schema. This includes normalizing dates, balances, statuses, identifiers, and relationships across files that are often delivered in inconsistent or ad hoc formats».
The same firm describes itself as one that «cleans and validates data tapes by recalculating values from raw inputs», across more than eighty originators and two dozen institutional investors. The practical rule for a lender follows directly: ship raw columns, ship the dictionary, and let the other side compute the averages. An average the reader cannot reproduce is not an average the reader disbelieves. It is one the reader never sees.
a claimed default rate over its own loss tab
0.02 per cent claimed against 1.41 and 1.34, in one workbook.
A weighted average is faked when there is nothing to weigh, and the fake is visible in the cell
In a screening package we read in July 2026, on an anonymised book of about MXN 124 million, the weighted average yield was a hardcoded formula sitting on a base that did not equal the portfolio, and a stated historical default rate of 0.02 per cent sat in the same workbook as a loss tab showing 1.41 per cent for 2023 and 1.34 per cent for 2024. That is why the data request we send now asks for the loan level file and the cohort loss curves before it asks a single question about yield.
The discrepancy is about seventy times, inside one package, and it is not primarily a credit finding. An analyst clicks the cell, sees the formula, and concludes that the loan level register the entire diligence depends on is probably not maintained. Reading a defect in the data as a defect in the operation is what the first hour of diligence is for.
A tape can be recomputed. A deck can only be believed.
Effect is not a bank, a lender, a broker-dealer, an investment adviser or a credit rating agency. Nothing here is investment, legal or tax advice. Every figure carries its source and the date of the version counted, so a reader can check it rather than take it. The anonymised case is our own reading of a package a lender supplied to us, at a 31 May 2026 cut-off.
Where every figure on this page comes from12 sources
- 0117 CFR 229.1125, SEC Schedule AL, Items 1 to 5, field counts taken from the eCFR text, read 5 August 2026.
- 02Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2020/1224, Annexes I, IV, VI, II and XII, per the Bank of England restatement effective 1 November 2024.
- 03CNBV, instructivo de llenado for reports C-0430 to C-0439, commercial credit, CUIFE for regulated SOFOM, updated 23 January 2026, 349 pages.
- 04Fannie Mae, single family loan performance data file layout, 108 fields, 26 May 2026, and the 2016 acquisition and performance layouts, 24 plus 26 fields.
- 05Finley, consumer loan tape template, 24 columns, 30 March 2022.
- 06Warehouse loan and security agreement, amended and restated to 21 March 2002, eight field data transmission minimum.
- 07European DataWarehouse, extended template built with Moody's Investors Service and S&P Global Ratings, extra field counts by asset class.
- 08HR Ratings, Metodologia para Activos Financieros, cohort requirements, October 2022.
- 09Revere and FCP diligence checklists, on the data dictionary as a named deliverable, read 5 August 2026.
- 10Cascade Debt, on tape cracking before pricing, 16 January 2026, and its self description via SME Finance Forum, 3 June 2025.
- 11Effect lender data request, item B.1, our own published twelve field minimum, July 2026.
- 12Effect credit memo on an anonymised Mexican lender, book about MXN 124 million, cut-off 31 May 2026, analysis dated 17 July 2026.
Questions this raises
- What is a loan tape?
- A loan tape is the loan level file behind a credit portfolio: one row per loan at a stated cut-off date, with columns for identity, terms, borrower, collateral, balances and payment behaviour. Authority comes from the cut-off date and from the fact that every figure in it can be recomputed by the reader, not from how many columns it happens to have.
- How many fields does a loan tape need?
- Twenty-four columns is the working minimum a private credit provider asks a fintech for at first contact, per the Finley consumer template. Regulatory schemas run much wider: 69 fields for a European consumer exposure under EU 2020/1224, 121 for a corporate one with collateral, and 282 for a residential mortgage under the SEC asset level schedule.
- What is the difference between a loan tape and a bid tape?
- A loan tape is monitored and a bid tape is priced. The loan tape describes a book its owner is keeping, at a cut-off date, and is refreshed on a cadence. A bid tape describes a population offered for sale, is usually stripped of borrower identity, and exists to support one decision at one moment.
- Do we have to send a data dictionary with the tape?
- Yes, and two published fund checklists name it as a deliverable rather than a nicety. Without a dictionary the reader cannot separate an empty cell from a zero or a restructuring from a renewal, so the reader assumes the worse reading of each. Declaring absence explicitly, in the ND1 to ND5 grammar of EU 2020/1224, is cheaper than being priced as if the field was never collected.
- Our systems hold the data but we cannot export one clean file. Is that a blocker?
- Not for the credit, only for the calendar. A regulated Mexican lender already reports about 102 columns of loan level data to the CNBV every month, so the fields usually exist and the export does not. Building that export is a quarter of engineering work, while a missing origination history cannot be built late at any price.