The questions we get asked on almost every call.

No, and we are not required to be. We arrange commercial finance for limited companies for business purposes. Lending of that kind falls outside regulated activity under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, because the protections in that regime exist for consumers rather than for companies borrowing commercially.

We do not arrange consumer credit, personal borrowing, or regulated residential mortgages, in any circumstances.

Yes, but only on finance secured on property, and only where the borrowing is wholly or predominantly for a business or investment activity the individual carries on, or intends to carry on. An agreement of that kind is an exempt agreement under Article 60C(3) of the Regulated Activities Order, and section 5.2 of our Terms of Business sets out the basis.

We do not arrange unsecured finance for an individual borrower in any circumstances, and nothing for personal, household or domestic purposes. A sole trader or partnership borrowing to fund a trade or business is outside what we do.

Every case of this kind is reviewed individually before anything is submitted, and the lending partner’s documents include the declaration the exemption requires.

Because regulation follows the activity, not the firm.

A broker arranging consumer credit, personal borrowing or residential mortgages has to be authorised, because those protections exist for individuals. A broker arranging commercial finance for limited companies does not, because that borrowing sits outside the regime.

A broker doing both will be authorised, and correctly so. It does not mean the commercial side of what they do is regulated. It is not, for them either.

What it does mean for you is that the Financial Ombudsman Service is not available in respect of our services. We say that plainly rather than leaving you to find out, and we publish our own complaints procedure.

Nobody can answer that before seeing how a business trades. Two businesses asking for the same amount on the same day get different numbers, because the lending partner sets the price after a full assessment.

What we can tell you is the shape of it. Short-term facilities are priced monthly, longer terms annually, and property finance on the asset and the exit rather than the business. Within each, the gap between a strong profile and a weaker one is wide enough that one published figure would mislead you.

What we can show you is the cost in pounds. Foresight gives a monthly figure for any amount, from lower to higher, built from funding we have arranged rather than from rate cards. No details taken, nothing you enter recorded, and it is an estimate rather than a quotation. A headline rate is a number almost nobody receives, and when the real figure arrives after expectations are set, it is the most common reason a business walks away from a facility it had been approved for.

Foresight gives you the range before you speak to anyone. When an offer comes back, you get the full breakdown before you sign anything: total repayable, monthly payment, fees, and what happens if you settle early.

On unsecured lending we are paid by the lending partner. On some facilities an arrangement fee can also apply. It is set for each case, is open to discussion and is shown in your proposal before you sign. On property finance we do charge, and the amount is agreed with you before any work starts.

Wherever a fee applies, you will know before you commit to anything. The Terms of Business also set out an abort fee if you withdraw after signing the lending partner’s documents.

The lending partner, on unsecured lending. You can ask what any facility pays us at any point, and we will tell you. We are paid when a case completes, not on application and not on introduction.

Sometimes. A bank is usually cheaper on rate if it says yes, and the question is whether it will. For many established businesses the answer has already been no, or the process took months to get there. Where a business has a strong profile, our pricing can be competitive with a bank. Where it does not, we can often still get it funded.

An advertised personal rate is not an offer. Until someone has looked at you, it is a number in an advert.

The bigger cost is tax. Personal borrowing is repaid out of money you have already paid tax on, with no relief against corporation tax, and money moving between you and the business creates a trail somebody has to keep straight. On anything of size, that costs more than the rate gap saves. Your accountant can put numbers on it.

Personal facilities also top out well short of what a growing business needs, and are assessed on your income rather than on what the business turns over. A business needing £200,000 is not choosing between cheap and expensive. The cheapest money is the money you can actually get when you need it.

Lenders are not lending their own money: much of it is institutional and comes at a cost to them. The arrangement fee covers putting the facility together and the margin they need to keep lending. Every lender has one in some form, charged as a fee or built into the rate.

It comes down to affordability: what the business turns over, what it already services, and what the account supports. Foresight shows the cost of any amount. Whether that amount is right for your business is what the assessment is for.

Risk, assessed by the lending partner, which is why we assess it first. Six months of statements are read before anything is submitted, so you are not put in front of a lender who was always going to decline.

On property finance a secured case is decided on the asset: what it is worth, what is already charged against it and how the facility is repaid. Turnover and credit profile matter far less.

There is no guarantee in either case. There is a considerable difference between a case that has been assessed and one that has been sent.

It is not a mark against you, but lenders read an absence of history as uncertainty. A business with no borrowing record gives an underwriter nothing to assess beyond the account, and your personal credit file does not fill that gap. It is one reason an established, profitable business can still be quoted worse than it should be.

Where that is the position, a smaller facility used properly and cleared on time builds a record under the company, and the next conversation starts from a better place. It is not the fastest route to the largest number, but it is often the cheaper one over two years.

No. Weaker figures usually mean a higher rate or a shorter term, not a decline: there is a price for risk and it is normally payable. Approval is never one factor. Trading, account conduct, existing commitments and credit profile all count.

Not on its own. If the bank account is clean and the trading supports it, a loss-making year does not stop a business being funded.

It depends on whether it is settled.

An active unsatisfied judgment, against the business or against you personally, means we will not place the case on unsecured lending. Submitting it would cost you a search and change nothing, and it is better to hear that now.

A satisfied judgment, with proof it is settled, is a different conversation and is looked at case by case.

Property finance works differently. A judgment does not automatically stop a secured case, because a bridge is decided on the asset and the exit.

Because someone is running the company.

On almost all unsecured lending there is a personal guarantee, which makes the director directly relevant rather than incidental. Even without one, a lending partner is assessing how the person in charge of the money handles money.

It is the same question a bank asks and does not say out loud.

Not in itself. Appetite differs between lenders and moves over time, so a case declined in one place is regularly approved in another on the same statements. What matters more is how many attempts have already been made, because each one leaves a mark.

No. Some lenders cap what a non-homeowner can borrow. That is their own risk control, it varies, and it is rarely mentioned upfront. Others apply no cap, and we know which is which, which is part of how we place a case.

It shapes what is realistic. We look for at least two years of trading and a filed set of accounts, and a younger business can be looked at case by case where its turnover is strong. A short-term facility is usually more achievable than a longer term loan, which is harder and depends on the rest of the picture.

No, most businesses have some. What matters is whether the business can service what it carries and what it is asking for.

No. Most businesses that took one still have it, and it is not held against you. It is existing borrowing like any other.

This applies to property finance. A bridge is short-term lending, and the exit is how it gets repaid, normally a sale or a refinance.

No lender will proceed without one, and a bridge without a credible exit is the biggest risk in this market. It is the equivalent of affordability on an unsecured facility and carries the same weight.

If you already own property, a charge can often be taken against it and used toward the purchase, so the equity becomes the deposit and nothing has to come out of the bank. It depends on the properties and the lending partner, and is worked out case by case.

It needs a closer look, not a quick answer.

One or two, some time ago, against an otherwise clean account, is usually explainable. A pattern is read as a signal about the business, not an accident, whatever the turnover looks like. We will tell you about it before anyone else sees it, and it can change in three months.

Making an enquiry does not. Us reading your bank statements does not. Neither of those touches your file.

A hard search normally happens when you accept an offer, at the lending partner’s end. Some partners work the other way round and assess first, deciding after. A small number search at the point of submission.

Where that applies, you are told before anything is submitted. We run no consumer credit searches ourselves.

A soft search leaves no footprint other lenders can see. A hard search does, and repeated hard searches make the next application harder. It is the reason we assess from statements first.

No. We are not a marketplace and we do not shop a case around. The assessment happens in-house from your statements, and the case goes to the lending partner whose criteria it fits, usually one and occasionally two, not to a panel.

It can, where the lending partner reports to the credit reference agencies. Many do. We can confirm whether yours does before you proceed.

On a clean unsecured case, statements in the morning and an answer the same day is normal. Some are resolved on the first call.

Once the lending partner’s checks are complete and the agreements are signed, funds can arrive the same day. The variable is rarely us: it is how quickly documents come back and how the lending partner’s own process runs.

You get a phone call from the person who will handle your case.

We ask how much and what for. If it looks viable, we ask for six months of statements. Then you get an answer, usually the same day.

Worth knowing how the money works. On unsecured lending we are paid when a case completes, not on application and not on introduction, so we have no reason to collect your statements unless the case is real, or to keep you in a process that is going nowhere.

When there is something to say. If you would rather have everything by email, that is fine.

It depends entirely on where the case already is.

Two to four weeks is normal from a standing start. The fastest we have done is three days: a lender pulled out, the searches were done, and we reused the existing valuation. It took working round the clock and a client who picked up every time we rang. That is not the number to plan on, but it shows what the constraint really is.

The lending is rarely what takes the time. The valuation and the solicitors set the pace, the opposite of unsecured, where the lending partner is the slow part. What decides it is how much has already been done: a clean title, a valuation that can be reused, a solicitor who has done this before. Anyone quoting seven days as a rule is quoting their fastest case and calling it their average.

If you have a date you have to hit, tell us at the start. It changes which lending partner the case goes to, and on a tight one that is the whole difference.

Because they show where the business actually is: affordability, account conduct, what is already being serviced, and whether the trading supports the request. Most lenders underwrite the same way, whatever their website says about accounts. Six months, five to seven minutes from your banking app.

Because some lenders ask for it, and each sets its own policy, which we follow. Some assess a case on PDF statements and ask for open banking only at funding. Others want it beforehand. Either way it helps prevent fraud, and it speeds up the underwriting, because the lending partner reads the transactions directly instead of checking a PDF.

The link usually comes straight from the lending partner or its funding provider, and sometimes from us. We tell you first, so it never arrives unexpectedly.

Open banking lets you share your business account’s transactions with a lending partner through a regulated provider, instead of sending statements. It works much like the link your banking app uses to show you your other accounts in one place. You approve it yourself, signing in on your own bank’s page or app, so the lending partner never sees your login.

The access is view-only. It shows transactions and cannot move money. The connection is made with the lending partner and its provider, and you can end it yourself in your banking app in a couple of minutes. If you are not comfortable with it, tell us. Depending on the lending partner, we look for another way.

Accounts describe a year that has already finished. A business could have turned over three million last year and barely traded in the last three months, and the accounts would not show it. The bank account would. Accounts are sometimes needed alongside, but are rarely enough on their own.

Because they can already see a good deal of it. The largest UK banks must share data on their business customers with credit reference agencies, who pass it to other lenders: current account behaviour, loans, corporate cards.

So a lender running an automated decision is not guessing. It is reading a monthly summary of how the account has been run, alongside the company’s filed accounts and its credit file.

That is not the same as an email telling you that you are pre-approved for a figure. A lender making an automated decision has run a search and has the shared data in front of it. A marketing email has neither.

What a lender does not have is the detail, or the current month. The shared data runs four to six weeks behind and is a summary, not a transaction list. That is why we still ask for statements, and why a case that looks marginal on the summary can look fine on the actual account.

It is also why a lender can come back mid-process with questions after saying yes in principle. The decision was made on the summary, and the questions are the detail catching up.

Six months as standard on unsecured lending. Some facilities need three. Occasionally a case needs longer, and we will say so rather than asking twice.

Property finance is different. We need the property, the transaction and the exit before we need statements at all.

Full PDF statements, downloaded from online banking, one month at a time. Not screenshots, photographs of a screen, transaction exports or spreadsheets: lenders will not accept those, so sending them costs days.

Where accounts are required, full accounts with a balance sheet, not the abbreviated version filed at Companies House.

Everything you send is held in encrypted, access-controlled storage in the UK or under equivalent protection. Not on a shared drive, and not provided to anyone on our team outside the United Kingdom. Security and data

On property finance, yes, and the borrower pays. On some cases the fee can go onto the facility instead of being paid up front, depending on the lending partner and agreed in advance. Unsecured lending does not involve a valuation: the statements are the assessment.

No. Your case goes to the lending partner it fits, usually one and occasionally two, which is the point of assessing it properly first. Where a case has something to explain it can go to a few more, each with the explanation attached, so nobody has to find the gap on their own.

On unsecured lending, almost always. Guarantee requirements are set by the lending partner, not by Funding11. Where one is required it is set out in the lending partner’s offer and facility documentation.

It creates a personal liability for the guarantor which is separate from the liability of the business. If the business does not repay, the guarantor does.

Terms vary. Some guarantees are unlimited and cover the full balance. Some are capped. The scope, the limit and the circumstances in which it can be called are set out in the lending partner’s documentation.

You are responsible for reading that documentation in full before accepting a facility, including any guarantee, security or indemnity requirement in it. Nothing Funding11 says about a facility is a substitute for the lending partner’s own terms.

A personal guarantee is a personal legal commitment. Funding11 recommends you take independent legal advice before signing one, and you should not sign one without having had the opportunity to do so.

Very little unsecured lending is available without a guarantee, and what exists is priced accordingly. Whether a guarantee is required is the lending partner’s decision.

On unsecured lending there is no charge over your property. A personal guarantee is a personal liability, not security over an asset.

On property finance, the property given as security can be repossessed if repayments are not maintained.

Yes, and it matters.

We will explain a facility in plain commercial terms, and that explanation is not the agreement. The agreement is the lending partner’s own documentation, including any guarantee, security or indemnity in it.

Nothing we say replaces reading it. If something in it does not match what you understood, that is the moment to ask, not after it is signed.

No. We arrange finance. Lending partners lend.

Since 2018. In that time we have reviewed 3,000+ funding applications, completed 650+ facilities and placed £22.6m+ with lending partners. We are not new to this.

Funding11 is the trading name of FND11 Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 11722998, and you can look it up free on Companies House. We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office, number ZA505754. Our reviews are public on Trustpilot. Our regulatory position and our complaints procedure are on this website in full, so you do not have to ask for them.

Brokers advertise panels of two and three hundred lenders, and it makes little difference. The unsecured market is smaller than that, and if a business is not fundable, a bigger panel does not change it. What changes the outcome is knowing which lending partner will approve a specific profile and how the case should be presented.

You will be told once an offer is made and before you sign anything. We do not disclose it earlier, which is how this market works.

Yes, you are welcome to. What you will see is the published criteria. What decides the case is the underwriting behind it, and that is not published anywhere.

The same business, on the same statements, gets different answers from different lenders. Which one sees the case, how much is asked for and how it is presented move the outcome as much as the numbers do, and that is the part we do. A decline direct from one lender, after a hard search, leaves a footprint other lenders can see, and the next application is harder. We assess from your statements first and send the case to the lending partner whose criteria it fits.

Not with the decision. A relationship manager can open an application and chase it, but the decision is made by underwriting, against the lender’s criteria, and the relationship does not change what underwriting sees.

What changes the outcome is knowing what a lender will and will not fund right now. That is not published and it moves: what was funded easily in March is declined in September. One lender’s account manager sees that lender. We see across the ones we place with.

Yes, we specialise in them. The amount is rarely what decides a case. The structure, the security and the evidence behind it are, and a larger facility gets more questions on each, not a different process.

Usually, yes, as long as it can be explained and evidenced. Groups, holding companies, several directors and connected borrowers are not a problem in themselves. A structure that nobody will explain is.

We would advise against it. If the same case reaches a lender through more than one broker, it can be declined for that reason alone, and the declines sit on the file.

Choose one broker you trust and talk to them first. A conversation before any documents tells you early whether a case works. Documents handed to somebody whose job is only to collect them tell you nothing.

An experienced broker, from the first call. Whoever works on your case at Funding11 has done this for years, and the aim is the same on every call: get the business done without wasting your time or ours.

The lending partner’s documents. Funding11 arranges finance and explains facilities in commercial terms. It does not provide legal, tax, accounting or investment advice, and nothing said by Funding11 forms part of the agreement between you and a lending partner.

Any facility you enter into is governed solely by that partner’s terms and conditions. Funding11 is not a party to it and is not responsible for its terms or its performance.

A loan is a lump sum into the account, repaid on a fixed schedule: predictable, and the right structure when you need capital outright.

A credit line is an approved limit you draw from as required, each drawdown on its own term, so you are not paying for money you have not taken. They solve different problems, and neither is better.

You do not have to know. You tell us how much and what for, and we work out the structure.

Yes, and it is common. A loan and a credit line together, or a card alongside either.

Any legitimate business purpose. Once funds are with you, how they are deployed in the business is your decision.

We do not arrange personal borrowing. If you are putting your own money into the business, that is entirely your decision and nothing to do with us.

No. Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 covers consumer credit agreements, and the cards we arrange are commercial facilities to limited companies and LLPs, which are not. It is one of the trade-offs of borrowing as a company rather than as an individual.

A disputed transaction can normally still be raised as a chargeback through the card scheme, which is a different mechanism with different rules and no statutory backing.

Where a provider advertises purchase protection on a commercial card, that is an insurance product they have added, not Section 75. Read what it actually covers.

Yes, on the cards we currently arrange. Add it in the provider’s app once the account is live and it works like any other card in your wallet.

Occasionally, where there is a reason to. It is not the normal route and it will not usually be the fastest.

Broadly, if you are a UK limited company with at least £360,000 a year going through the business account, with established trading and a clear reason for the funding. That is the starting point, not a guarantee.

On unsecured lending, £360,000 a year through the business account, roughly £30,000 a month. We use bank turnover, not filed accounts, because that is how most lenders underwrite.

Property finance is not assessed on turnover. A bridge starts at £150,000 and is decided on the asset and the exit. A portfolio facility starts at £250,000 and is decided on the value of the property or properties you already hold and what is already secured against them.

Mostly. It is what almost every business we fund is, so the site is written around it.

LLPs are fine too. Our lending partners work with them and we place them the same way, they just come up less often.

We do not arrange finance for sole traders or partnerships to fund a trade or business, and never unsecured finance for an individual. The one exception, individuals investing in property, is covered under Regulation.

That happens, and it is workable. It is not the route most investors take now, but plenty of portfolios were built that way and they do not stop being fundable because of it.

Two things follow. The purpose has to be business or investment, not personal, and a property you live in is outside what we do entirely. The case also gets a closer look before anything moves, because there is more to check. It is not a problem, just a slower first conversation than a company case.

We are not the right fit. We work with established trading businesses.

Most of them. We do not place gambling, adult entertainment or crypto, or a small number of others. Everything else is looked at on its merits.

Come back. Almost every client who returns for a second facility gets funded.

Often, depending on the facility and where the business is at the time.

Anything about the existing facility goes to the lending partner. Anything new, a top-up, or a question about what to do next comes to us. The relationship does not end at completion.