Methodology for rating business loans
You’ll find star ratings on some of our business loan provider reviews. Here’s how we came up with them.
You may have noticed that some of our business loan pages and tables come with star ratings. What do these stars mean? Well, they let you see at a glance how good a business loan is. We explain below what goes into making the business loan star ratings.
Finder score
We rate credit cards using a system of one to five stars.
★★★★★ — Excellent
★★★★★ — Good
★★★★★ — Average
★★★★★ — Subpar
★★★★★ — Poor
How it works
We’ve scored business loans across several criteria. The different criteria as well as the categories have been weighted to reflect their importance. The final product is a star rating that gives you a full picture of how the business loans fare against each other.
Finder score
So, how do we score business loans?
We dive into the details of each loan, including:
- Amount range. How little or how much can you borrow?
- Term range. How short or long can you borrow for?
- Repayment holiday. Does the provider let you take a break whilst repaying back the loan?
- Early redemption penalty. Will you be penalised if you repay the loan before your contracted term agreement?
- Repayment changeable. Can you change how much you want to repay?
- Overpay without penalty. Can you overpay when repaying back the loan?
- Same day funds. Can you potentially receive funds the same day you apply?
- Lump sum payments. Can you repay in lump sums?
- Existing customers only. Is the loan only available to existing customers?
- Ethical or green lending. Does the provider reduce its impact on the environment or help the local community?
- Open-banking. Does the loan use open-banking to help decide whether or not to approve your loan application?
- Transparency. Is the provider transparent with their fees?
From these details, we can get a good picture at which lenders offer the best flexibility and transparency. We then rate how these loans against the average market performance to get the overall Finder Score.
More guides on Finder
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