Administrators and Service Providers

Some functions sit outside the lender–borrower–delegate triangle and are handled by administrators and external service providers.

Administrators hold protocol-level controls: onboarding and permissioning, pool admission, and any emergency powers such as pause authority. These controls are powerful, so who holds them and under what constraints is a security and governance matter, documented under Key Management and Administrative Controls and under Governance.

Service providers supply capabilities the protocol relies on but does not perform itself — for example KYC and screening vendors, custody or settlement partners, and audit firms. Each is named in the section relevant to its function (KYC, Security, Audits and Assurance) so that a reviewer can verify the provider rather than take the relationship on trust.