Independent · fee-paid by clients only

The monthly payment is not the price.

Astra Servicios Financieros Limitada reads credit and insurance offers on behalf of the people being offered them. We do not lend, we do not sell products, and no bank or lender pays us anything. This page is the part of the work we can publish: what a Chilean offer has to tell you, which number actually compares two offers, and what you are entitled to refuse.

Three offers. Identical monthly payment. Illustration only — not an offer, not anyone's rates

Offer A — 24 months

One number compares two offers. The rest are decoration.

Salespeople compete on the instalment because the instalment is the thing a customer can picture. It is also the easiest figure in the whole contract to make look good: stretch the term and the payment falls, whatever is happening to the cost.

Chilean law solves this for you. Every consumer credit offer has to disclose the Carga Anual Equivalente — the CAE — a single annual percentage that rolls the interest, the commissions, the mandatory insurance and the associated charges into one comparable figure. It exists for exactly one purpose: so that two offers can be placed side by side and one of them can be identified as more expensive.

Alongside it you are entitled to a hoja resumen, a standardised summary sheet setting out the principal terms of the contract, and a quotation that stays valid for at least seven business days. Seven days is not a courtesy — it is enough time to take the sheet to somebody else and ask what they would charge.

How to use the CAE properly

Compare the CAE only between offers of the same amount and the same term. A lower CAE over a longer term can still cost more money in total, because you are paying for longer. Look at the CAE to see which is the better deal, and at the total amount payable to see what it will actually take out of your life.

What the law gives you, and what to do with it

These are not concessions to be negotiated. They exist whether or not the person across the desk mentions them, and the right-hand column is the part that changes the outcome.

The entitlement

A summary sheet and a quotationThe principal clauses set out in standard form, plus a quote that holds for at least seven business days.
The CAE, disclosedOne annual figure covering interest, commissions, insurance and charges.
Published approval criteriaThe objective conditions for granting credit are to be knowable in advance, and a refusal is to be explained in writing on objective grounds.
Freedom on tied productsInsurance and other products may be offered alongside credit, but they require your separate, express consent — and cannot be imposed as a condition of approval.
The right to close a productThe right to end a financial product within ten days, once what is owed on it has been settled, so that its fees stop.

What to actually do

Take it away before signingAsk for the sheet and the quote in writing, leave, and get a second quote within the seven days. Deciding in the room is the single most expensive habit there is.
Ask for the CAE out loud"What is the CAE?" If the answer is the monthly payment, ask again. If it is still the monthly payment, you have learned something about the seller.
Ask for the refusal in writingA written reason is checkable, can be corrected if it rests on wrong data, and tells you what to fix before applying elsewhere.
Say no to the bundle, then ask againAsk what the CAE is without the optional insurance. If the offer changes, the insurance was never optional in the way it was described.
Close what you stopped usingDormant cards and lines quietly carry fees. Closing them is a right, not a favour, and it is also how you stop old products being used without you noticing.

The tied-product point deserves the most attention, because it is where the largest avoidable amounts sit. Credit-linked insurance can be legitimate and sometimes sensible. What it cannot be is compulsory, automatic, or hidden inside a payment you were told was the price of the loan. Where it is required by the contract, it belongs in the CAE; where it is genuinely optional, you are entitled to see the offer without it.

You are not stuck with the lender you started with

Chile's financial portability law lets a consumer move credit, accounts and other products from one institution to another, and it puts the administrative work on the institution that wants your business rather than on you. Most people never use it, because most people do not know the mechanism has a name and a procedure.

Ask your current provider for the settlement certificateA certificado de liquidación stating precisely what it would take to close each product — balances, charges, the lot. You are entitled to request it, and it is the document every competing institution will want to see.
Take it to other institutions and ask for a portability offerAn oferta de portabilidad is a binding offer to take over the products on stated terms. Because every institution is quoting against the same certificate, the offers are genuinely comparable — this is the one situation where comparison is easy.
Compare the offers on total cost, not reliefAn offer that lowers the monthly payment by extending the term is not automatically better. The same discipline as anywhere else: CAE for which is cheaper, total payable for what it costs you.
Accept, and let the new provider do the closingOn acceptance, the incoming institution handles paying off and closing the old products. The point of the law is that you are not left running between counters, and not left with a half-closed product still charging fees.
Confirm the old products are actually closedGet written confirmation from the previous institution, and check your own debt record afterwards. A product that was supposed to be closed but was not is the most common thing that goes wrong.

Before you move anything, look at your own record

The Comisión para el Mercado Financiero issues each person a report of their debts with supervised institutions, free of charge, on request. Read it before you start: it is the same picture the institutions will be working from, and if something on it is wrong, that is the thing to fix first.

Three sentences that should end a meeting

Not because the person is dishonest. Because the sale has stopped being about the product.

"THE RATE IS ONLY FOR TODAY"

A quotation is meant to hold for at least seven business days. Urgency manufactured against a legal minimum is a technique, not a condition of the market.

"THE INSURANCE IS PART OF IT"

Then ask for the same offer without it. Whatever is genuinely required belongs in the disclosed cost, and whatever is optional can be declined without the credit being refused.

"DON'T WORRY ABOUT THE CAE"

The one figure the law requires so that you can compare, dismissed by the person who benefits from you not comparing. Nothing else in the meeting needs assessing after that.

What Astra is — and what it is not

Astra Servicios Financieros Limitada is a private advisory firm in Santiago. We read documents. Clients bring us a credit offer, an insurance annex, a lease, a portability proposal or a contract they have been asked to sign, and we tell them in writing what it says, what it costs, what is optional, and what we would ask before signing.

The words "servicios financieros" appear in our registered name. They describe who we work for, not a licence. We hold no authorisation from any Chilean financial regulator, because nothing we do requires one — and we would rather state that plainly than let a reader assume otherwise from the name.

What we do

Read and explain credit, leasing and insurance documents in plain language
Work out the real total cost of an offer, and what drives it
Compare offers the client has obtained, on the disclosed figures
Prepare the questions to put to a lender, and review the answers
Explain a written refusal and what it points to
Explain the portability procedure and what each document in it does

What we are not

Not a bank, financing company, savings and loan or credit union
Not a stockbroker, securities intermediary or portfolio manager
Not an insurance broker or agent
Not a guarantee company, and not a remittance or payment provider
Not a holder of anyone's money or assets
Not a debt collector, and not a credit register

Things we will not do, on any terms

Accept a commission, referral fee or any other payment from a lender, insurer or broker — our fee comes from the client and from nowhere else
Recommend a specific product in exchange for anything from its provider
Promise that any application will be approved, or that any rate can be obtained
Sign, submit or negotiate anything in a client's name
Ask for money to "unlock", "release" or "speed up" a decision by any institution

Where a matter needs a lawyer, an accountant or a licensed insurance broker, we say so and stop there. Reading a document honestly sometimes means saying that the document needs a profession we do not practise.

Check anyone, including us, before you pay them

Banks, brokers, insurers, guarantee companies and registered financial service providers in Chile appear on the public registers of the Comisión para el Mercado Financiero. Consumer rights in financial products are set out by SERNAC. If a firm claims to be regulated, that claim is checkable in minutes on the regulator's own site — never on the firm's.