Your bank said no.
That is one lender’s opinion

First, find out the actual reason

Most declines arrive with no explanation, and the reason matters more than the decline. You are entitled to ask, and under the FCA’s rules a lender that declined you on the basis of a credit reference should tell you which agency it used so you can check the file yourself.

It is worth doing. Errors on business credit files are common, and a wrong default or a satisfied CCJ still showing as outstanding is both fixable and free to fix.

The four reasons behind most declines

Nearly every decline we see comes down to trading history, turnover, adverse credit or the absence of a homeowner director. Each one rules out some of our panel and leaves the rest, which is the whole reason a broker is useful at this point.

• Not trading long enough — the most common, and the one that resolves itself with time
• Turnover below the threshold — thresholds vary more across lenders than people expect
• A CCJ or adverse credit — how recent matters far more than how large
• No director owns a home — a quiet gate that decides more applications than it should

If your own bank is the one that said no

A decline from the bank you have used for years can feel final, because it has seen every transaction you have made. It is not. Banks lend inside a narrow appetite that is usually set centrally, and a business sitting just outside it can sit comfortably inside a specialist lender’s.

Before looking elsewhere, ask two questions. Was the decline about the business or about the product? A bank that will not lend unsecured may still offer an overdraft or asset finance. And was it the amount? A smaller request is sometimes approved where the larger one was refused, and the bank will rarely volunteer that.

What not to do

Do not apply everywhere at once. Each application leaves a search on your file that other lenders can see, and a cluster of searches reads as distress. It makes the next decision worse, not better.

Enquiring with us leaves no mark at all, because we run no credit check. We check your details against the panel’s published criteria first, and only approach the lenders that can realistically say yes.

When the honest answer is to wait

Sometimes there is no lender for the position you are in, and we will say so rather than put you through applications that will fail. Usually what changes the answer is another few months of trading or one more filed set of accounts, and knowing that is more useful than another decline.