Institutional Loan
Updated on 30 October 2025
1. What is Institutional Loan?
Institutional Loan supports loans of fixed interest rates for a fixed term of 90 days. Borrowers are charged constant interest during the loan period, providing both predictability and stability.
Institutional Loan works on a peer-to-peer model, matching lending orders (taker orders) to borrower orders (maker orders). OKX sets the APR based on market conditions, taking into account various factors. Borrowers place orders on the Institutional Loan order book, specifying their borrowing amount.
Lenders place lending orders on the Simple Earn Fixed orderbook. The system then matches lending orders to borrowing orders. Once matched, OKX will verify the MR (Margin Ratio) of the borrowers. If it meets the requirement of the IMR (Initial Margin Ratio), the loan amount will be directly added to borrowers' account. Full interest will be charged at the end of the term.
2. Key Advantages
Under-collateralized, with up to 2.5X leverage
Borrowing amount directly added to the account balance
Fixed interest rate and term for 90 days, ensuring liquidity stability and cost expectation.
Loan risk is measured by the margin ratio of a risk unit. The risk unit consists of any number of their main and sub-accounts defined by the users.
3. Overview
Eligible users: Whitelisted users
Minimum borrowing amount: 1,000,000 USDT
Supported cryptocurrencies: USDT
Supported term: 90 days
Leverage: up to 2.5x
Collateral: The available collateral refers to the sum of the User's assets of certain currencies in the Account which contains the liability, and in the sub-accounts within the risk unit. For detailed calculation please refer to [Part 8: Risk Control]
Loan Disbursement: Delegated main account in the selected risk unit
4. How to borrow from Institutional Loan?
1. Get whitelisted
Contact our BD team to ensure your account is whitelisted before borrowing. Whitelisting is determined on a case-by-case basis.
2. Place your borrowing orders
Set your borrowing amount based on the prevailing market APR and your collateral value.
Upon confirming your order, the total interest will be recorded as a contingent liability, and withdrawal restrictions will apply based on the margin ratio requirement.
3. Wait for order to match
Your borrowing request will be split into sub-orders and matched with any available lending orders.
Once matched, we’ll verify your Margin Ratio (MR). If it meets our initial MR standard, the matched funds will be transferred to your funding account. And the borrowed amount along with the total interest will be both recorded as liability.
5. Interest
5.1 How's interest charged?
Interest for a single Institutional Loan term (90 days) is as follows = Borrowing amount × Interest rate × 90 / 365
Interest begins to accrue once your loan amount is ready to be drawdown. It will be calculated as liability in your risk unit from the time that it is drawndown. It must be repaid along with the principal on the maturity date.
Example:
Borrowing amount: 1,000,000 USDT
Matched interest rate: 6%
Loan term: 90 days
Interest = 1,000,000 USDT × 6% × 90 / 365 = 14,794.5205 USDT
5.2 What is the overdue fee?
If you do not repay on maturity date, your loan will become overdue and an extra overdue interest will be charged on an hourly basis.
Example:
Loan amount: 1,000,000 USDT
Term: 90 days
Interest rate: 6%
Overdue APR: 30%
Overdue period: 9 hours 50 mins (will be rounded up to 10 hours)
Overdue fee: 1,000,000 USDT x 30% x 10 / 24 / 365= 342.4658 USDT
Total amount be repaid = Total interest + overdue interest = 15,136.9863 USDT
6. Repayment
6.1 Repay on maturity
You can exercise manual repayment by sub-order level. If you repay in the last 24 hours before maturity, remaining interest for the number of full hours until maturity will not be charged.
6.2 Early Repayment
If you repay your loan more than 24 hours before maturity, you will be charged an extra prepayment fee equivalent to 100% of the residual interest.
6.3 Overdue Repayment
If a loan is overdue, overdue interest will be charged. If a loan is overdue by more than 14 days, forced liquidation is triggered. OKX may then sell your collateral and assets to pay down your loan liability. This may result in losses to you. As such, overdue loans should be repaid as soon as possible.
7. Rollover
A rollover functionality will be enabled 7 days (168 hours) before maturity of the current term. Once the rollover functionality has been selected for a specific loan, then:
A new borrowing order is created in the amount of the loan (New Order), which OKX will then attempt to match with available lending orders
Interest for your current 90-day term will be frozen in your funding account. Upon the New Order being matched with lending liquidity, interest accrued for the previous order will be deducted from your account
A further 14-days of interest will be frozen in your funding account. This frozen sum is used to cater for any overdue period between the maturity date of your current order and when your New Order's term begins. Interest will be charged on that period, at the Overdue APR rate of 30%.
If successfully matched, the principal of the New Order will be substituted for the principal of the earlier order.
In the event that at the end of the period 14 days after the expiration of the current order's term, the New Order is matched only in part, then a loan will be advanced only in the amount of the matched portion of the New Order. If the New Order is wholly unmatched, then no new loan will be advanced.
8. Risk Control
8.1 Risk Units and Forced Loan Repayment
Prior to being granted a loan or line of credit for the products/services described below, borrowers must nominate any number of their main and sub-accounts (or no sub-accounts) to form a cluster called a Risk Unit. Borrowers can choose whether or not to include their main account in the Risk Unit; if they do, then the main account would be the operative account where the Creditline / Institutional Loan services are provided. In the event that borrowers do not choose to include their main account in the Risk Unit, they may choose to treat a sub-account as the delegated main account where the Creditline / Institutional Loan service are provided. Each of the main / sub-accounts can only be part of one Risk Unit. In the absence of a selection of Risk Unit composition, the Main and all eligible sub-accounts are selected to form the Risk Unit. Borrowers can form multiple Risk Units, for different Creditline / Institutional Loan service orders, subject to overall risk management requirements applicable in each case. OKX monitors the overall risk level of each loan or line of credit by reference only to the nominated Risk Unit. Margin Ratios are calculated by reference to the assets in the Risk Unit.
Borrowers are responsible for managing the risk levels of the accounts within their Risk Unit.
For further details on Risk Units and the Forced Loan Repayment process which applies to your Institutional Loans, please refer to the Forced Loan Repayment, Credit Line Liquidation and Risk Unit Terms and Conditions.