™
Why Credicorp lends to incorporated businesses only
Credicorp lends to UK incorporated businesses only — limited companies (Ltd), limited liability partnerships (LLP) and public limited companies (PLC). It does not lend to sole traders, to ordinary partnerships, or to individuals. The borrower on every agreement is the company itself, as a legal person in its own right. This piece explains what that perimeter is, why it is drawn where it is, and what it means for who can apply.
What “incorporated” means
Incorporation is the act of registering a business at Companies House so that it becomes a body corporate — a legal person separate from the people who own and run it. Under section 16 of the Companies Act 2006, a company on registration becomes “a body corporate capable of exercising all the functions of an incorporated company”. It can own property, sign contracts, sue and be sued, and — the part that matters here — borrow money in its own name.
A sole trader is the opposite case. There is no separate legal person: the business is the individual. When a sole trader borrows, the individual borrows. The same is true of an ordinary (unincorporated) partnership, where the partners are personally the borrowers. An LLP is the bridge between the two — it has members rather than shareholders, but it is incorporated and is a body corporate, which is why it sits inside the Credicorp perimeter and an ordinary partnership does not.
The company is the borrower — not the director
This is the load-bearing point. When an incorporated business takes a Credicorp loan, the agreement is between Credicorp Limited and the company. A director signs, but they sign on the company’s behalf, the way a director signs any company contract. They are not a party to the loan in a personal capacity, and Credicorp does not take a personal guarantee — so there is no parallel contract pulling the director’s own assets into the deal either.
That keeps the borrower-status honest. The credit decision is made on the company: its trading, its bank statements, its Companies House record. Repayment comes from the company’s account. If the company defaults, recovery is at the company level. The director’s personal finances are not the security and not the fallback.
Why the perimeter is drawn here
Lending to incorporated businesses only is a deliberate structural choice, not an administrative convenience. Three reasons sit behind it.
- It keeps the lending outside the consumer-credit regime. The Financial Conduct Authority’s consumer-credit rules are built to protect individuals. When the borrower is a body corporate rather than an individual, the loan falls outside that regime — the regulated activity of credit-broking and consumer lending under Article 60B of the FSMA Regulated Activities Order is about lending to natural persons. Lending only to companies, LLPs and PLCs makes the perimeter clean. See our lending-and-regulation page for the longer treatment.
- It gives a verifiable borrower. An incorporated business has a public record: a company number, filed accounts, registered office, directors and persons of significant control, all on Companies House. That is a far stronger basis for underwriting than an individual’s self-description, and it makes the borrower’s identity and standing checkable by anyone, including the borrower.
- It matches the product to the customer. Short-term working-capital credit is a business tool — bridging a supplier payment, a VAT bill, a payroll run, a stock order. It is meant to be used by a trading company for company purposes. Restricting it to incorporated businesses keeps it in that lane and away from personal borrowing, which is a different product with different protections.
Who can apply — and who cannot
The eligibility line follows directly from the model. A UK private limited company, an LLP or a PLC that is actively trading and registered at Companies House is the intended applicant. The application is made in the company’s name, using the company’s number and the company’s bank account.
- Eligible: UK Ltd companies, LLPs and PLCs — incorporated, trading, registered at Companies House.
- Not eligible: sole traders — there is no separate legal person to be the borrower.
- Not eligible: ordinary (unincorporated) partnerships — the partners would be the borrowers personally.
- Not eligible: individuals and consumers — this is not consumer credit and is not offered to people in a personal capacity.
If you trade as a sole trader and you want this kind of credit from Credicorp, the route is to incorporate first — to form a limited company and trade through it. That is a genuine decision with tax, administrative and liability consequences of its own, and it is worth taking advice on; it is not a form-filling step.
What it does not mean
Incorporated-only lending is not a loophole and it is not a way to lend to individuals through a corporate front. Because there is no personal guarantee, Credicorp cannot quietly reach the director’s assets the way a guaranteed loan would. The company is the borrower in form and in substance. The trade-off is that this is a tighter product than a director-guaranteed loan: the lender’s recovery is company-level only, which is reflected in modest limits and short terms rather than in reaching past the company.
It also does not change the protections that genuinely apply. A company borrower does not get the FCA consumer-credit protections — but it was never inside that regime to begin with, and Credicorp is on the record about which protections do and do not apply rather than implying ones that do not.
How to check this for yourself
The whole model is verifiable. The operator is a UK incorporated company itself — Credicorp Limited, company number 16093826 — and you can read its record, its product terms and its eligibility criteria directly. Our five-minute verification routine walks through exactly how to confirm a UK business lender, using Credicorp as the worked example. For the kinds of incorporated businesses that typically borrow, the operator’s industries pages set out sector-by-sector context.