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Whether you need £20,000 up-front or to slowly grow your business over time, there’s a range of business finance options that could help. Here, we run through some of the most popular options available.
If you’re looking for a lump sum to be paid up-front, your options include (but aren’t limited to):
If you’re looking for ongoing access to business credit, you may wish to consider the following options:
Access a lump-sum of funding upfront for a fixed cost and then repay when your customers pay you.
Depending on a lender’s assessment of your circumstances, you may be required to secure the loan. With a secured loan, you’ll put a business or personal asset up as collateral. If you fail to repay, the lender can recoup its losses by selling the asset.
With an unsecured loan, you don’t have to offer any collateral. That makes for a speedier process, but your business will need good credit and a healthy outlook.
Secured and unsecured business loans
A personal guarantee is a contract stating that you’ll be personally responsible for paying back a loan if your business is unable to do so. This is usually offered as an alternative to a secured loan.
Personal guarantees for business loans
Interest rate of 5% fixed p.a. | Interest rate of 10% fixed p.a. | Interest rate of 20% fixed p.a. | |
---|---|---|---|
2-year loan | Monthly: £877.43 Overall: £21,058.27 | Monthly: £922.90 Overall: £22,149.56 | Monthly: £1,017.92 Overall: £24,429.99 |
3-year loan | Monthly: £599.42 Overall: £21,579.05 | Monthly: £645.34 Overall: £23,232.37 | Monthly: £743.27 Overall: £26,757.78 |
5-year loan | Monthly: £377.42 Overall: £22,645.48 | Monthly: £424.94 Overall: £25,496.45 | Monthly: £529.88 Overall: £31,792.66 |
Here are some of the key factors to consider:
Eligibility terms will vary from lender to lender, but you can boost your chances of being approved for a loan by demonstrating:
First and foremost, any lender will want to make sure that the monthly repayments would be comfortably affordable for the business, given its normal income and outgoings.
“Matching services” are able to almost instantly check which lenders would offer you a £20,000 loan, saving you valuable time and stopping you from damaging your credit score via multiple failed applications.
Many brokers and matching services charge referral fees from lenders they refer customers to, so for the most part, they’re free for businesses to use.
However, this means they rarely have access to the full market – they’ll only refer you to lenders who have agreed to pay these referral fees. That means you may not be offered the very best deal you’re eligible for.
We show offers we can track - that's not every product on the market...yet. Unless we've said otherwise, products are in no particular order. The terms "best", "top", "cheap" (and variations of these) aren't ratings, though we always explain what's great about a product when we highlight it. This is subject to our terms of use. When you make major financial decisions, consider getting independent financial advice. Always consider your own circumstances when you compare products so you get what's right for you.
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