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Due diligence · 28 May 2026 · London

How to verify a UK business lender in five minutes

A short, repeatable routine for checking that a UK business lender is who it says it is. Useful for any director weighing up a credit offer, and a fair test to run on Credicorp itself. We have linked every step to a primary source.

The five-minute routine

  1. Companies House — the company is real. Find the lender's company number on their site (usually footer), then open their Companies House record. Check: status (Active, not Dissolved or Liquidation), incorporation date (not "today, 30 minutes ago"), registered office (not a virtual-office address you can't trace), accounts and confirmation-statement filing history (not overdue), and registered charges.
  2. Companies House — the people are real. Open the "Officers" tab. Check: who is on the board, when they were appointed, country of residence, and whether the same person directs unrelated companies that have been struck off (a small but real red flag).
  3. FCA register — what the lender is (and isn't) authorised for. The FCA register is searchable by company name and number. For a body-corporate-only lender like Credicorp, you should expect no regulated-activity permission for consumer credit (that's the point). For a lender that claims to be "FCA-authorised", you should expect a Firm Reference Number and a list of specific permissions matching the claim.
  4. UKIPO — the brand is real. If the lender has a registered trade mark, look it up on the UKIPO register. Confirm the owner matches the company you just verified at Companies House. (Mismatches are a flag, though not always sinister — brand-protection groups exist for legitimate reasons.)
  5. Structural questions — the offer is honest. Read the product page itself. Look for: a clearly stated maximum loan amount, a clearly stated maximum term, a worked example of the largest borrow, a stated APR (or an explicit explanation of why APR doesn't apply), the personal-guarantee position, the complaints process, and the lender's own statement of its regulatory perimeter.

Worked example: Credicorp Limited

Running the routine on Credicorp Limited itself, with sources:

1. Companies House — the company is real

  • Credicorp Limited — Companies House overview
  • Status: Active
  • Incorporated: 21 November 2024
  • Registered office: Suite 53c, Unimix House, Abbey Road, London NW10 7TR (operator records; CH currently still shows the prior office — the AD01 is pending)
  • Accounts: first accounts not yet due
  • Charges: 0 registered

2. Companies House — the people are real

3. FCA register

4. UKIPO

  • CrediCorp — UK00004156742, registered to Credicorp Limited, Classes 36 and 45, registered 23 May 2025
  • CREDITCORP — UK00004379570, applicant CM Beyer Limited, Classes 35 and 36, currently Application Published
  • Both companies are under common directorship; both share a registered office

5. Structural questions

  • Maximum loan amount: £500 (both products)
  • Maximum term: 84 days on the Business Bridging Loan; ongoing on Credicorp Flex with 14-day cycles
  • Worked example of largest borrow: on the product page, £500 over 84 days at 0.25%/day = £105 interest + £5 fee = £610 to repay; ~137% APR
  • APR shown? Yes, on the operator product page, with the caveat that APR is a consumer-credit comparison figure
  • Personal guarantee? None — see our explainer
  • Complaints process? Internal, at credicorp.co.uk/feedback-and-complaints, then courts (no FOS)
  • Regulatory statement? Yes — the operator's footer says clearly that the lending is not a regulated credit agreement under Article 60B and the lender is not FCA-authorised

What "fails" the test looks like

If a lender's record on Companies House shows any of the following, slow down:

  • Status anything other than Active
  • Incorporation date in the very recent past combined with a claim of an "established" lending operation
  • Registered office at a virtual-office bulk-mail address with hundreds of companies using the same address
  • Overdue accounts or confirmation statements
  • A director who is a director of dozens of other companies that have been struck off
  • Registered charges that look out of proportion to the lender's product set

If a lender claims to be "FCA-authorised" but you cannot find them on the FCA register by name or company number, that's a hard stop — either the claim is wrong, the name on their website doesn't match the legal entity (look for the FRN on their site and search by FRN), or something is misrepresented.

Why this is worth doing

Five minutes of Companies House plus UKIPO plus the FCA register filters out a meaningful fraction of dubious lender offers. It also helps with legitimate lenders by separating "I trust the brand" from "I can name the actual company that will hold the agreement". The two are different and the second is the one that matters legally.

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