Fast, unsecured short-term business loans for UK limited companies

The fees and charges that can apply to your account — including anything relating to missed payments — are set out in your Business Loan Agreement. We will never apply a charge that is not in your agreement.

Whatever happens to your account, the total cost of credit is capped at 100% of the original principal, so charges can never push the amount you repay above twice what you borrowed.

If you are worried about missing a payment, contact us first. Agreeing a payment extension or arrangement in advance is almost always better than letting a payment fail — and if money is tight, see what to do if you are struggling to pay.

You can repay your loan in full at any point. To do this, request a settlement figure — the exact amount needed to clear the balance on a chosen date.

Because interest accrues daily on the outstanding balance, settling early reduces the interest you would otherwise have paid over the remaining days. An early-settlement charge of up to 28 days' interest may apply, though we waive it in many cases — the exact amount, if any, is shown in your settlement figure before you confirm.

Where early settlement reduces the interest you would otherwise pay, we will confirm any rebate when we provide the figure. To begin, see how to get a settlement figure, or read our fuller guide to early repayment and what you save.

APR stands for Annual Percentage Rate. It is the standardised cost measure used for regulated consumer credit — borrowing by individuals. Our lending is to limited companies for business purposes, which sits outside the consumer-credit regime, so an APR is not the figure we use. Instead we show the cost in the way that is clearest for a business decision.

• the amount borrowed and the term;

• the total amount payable — every pound the company will repay;

• the total cost of the credit — the difference between what is borrowed and what is repaid;

• a simple annualised rate, so you can compare the cost against other business finance;

• the full repayment schedule.

All of these appear on your Key Information Sheet (KIS) and in the Business Loan Agreement before you sign, so the cost is never a surprise.

APR is designed to compare long-running consumer products such as mortgages and credit cards, where it works well. For short-term business borrowing it can mislead — annualising the cost of a facility that runs for a few weeks produces a very large percentage that overstates what the company actually pays. The total cost of credit and the simple rate give a truer picture of a short-term facility.

If you would like us to walk through exactly how the cost of your loan was worked out, please contact us — we would always rather explain than leave you guessing. For a fixed-rate loan the figures on your agreement hold for the life of the loan; if the terms are ever varied (for example a hardship variation that extends the term), we will reissue the relevant figures so the new total cost is clear before anything is agreed.

If the company wants to borrow more on top of its existing loan, please tell us using the General Support Enquiry form on our Forms & Requests page and we will explain the next steps. We will look at the company's overall position — its recent cashflow, the existing balance with us and any other borrowing it holds — and decide whether further lending is appropriate.

If a top-up is appropriate, we will issue a fresh Key Information Sheet (KIS) showing the new amount, the new rate, the new payment and the new total payable. Nothing changes on the account until the new Business Loan Agreement is signed.

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Extending the term spreads the repayment over more time. That reduces each payment. But it leaves the balance in place for longer, so it increases the total cost of the credit across the life of the loan. Interest continues to accrue on the outstanding balance for the additional period. In other words, a smaller monthly payment is traded against a higher overall amount repayable. We will show both figures clearly — the new payment and the new total payable — before any change is made, so the company can weigh the lower monthly outlay against the extra cost over the full term.

If the reason for asking is that the current schedule has become hard to meet, please look at the alternatives in our struggling-to-pay article first — particularly a Hardship Variation or a Payment Arrangement. These are designed for exactly that situation and may produce a better outcome than a longer term.

A loan top-up is treated as a further advance, which means it goes through the same affordability assessment we apply to a first application — not a quick adjustment to a credit limit. We look at the company's current circumstances, not the position it was in when the original facility was agreed, because affordability can change as a business grows or contracts. If the assessment shows that more borrowing would stretch the company's finances, the responsible answer may be to decline the top-up even though the existing loan is being repaid on schedule.

• We cannot consolidate other lenders' debts into the Credicorp loan as part of a top-up.

• We cannot extend the term beyond the limits of the original product.

• We cannot agree a new amount or a new term without going through the proper assessment and disclosure.

To help us assess a top-up or a longer repayment schedule quickly, it is worth having a clear picture of the company's recent trading to hand — typically the latest management figures or bank statements, an idea of the amount you want to borrow or the new term you have in mind, and the reason for the request. The more context we have, the sooner we can tell you whether a further advance is appropriate and set out the new figures in a Key Information Sheet for you to consider.

Whatever you are weighing up, free, independent help with business money worries is available from Business Debtline — see our article on free debt advice in the UK.