Guides

Early repayment and refunds.

If your company can clear a short-term loan sooner, it should not cost you to do so. This guide explains how early repayment works on short-term company credit, why there is no early-repayment penalty, how the 100% cost cap bounds it, and how an unused fee is refunded on Credicorp Slice.

Why there is no early-repayment penalty

On a well-built short-term product, paying early simply costs less — there is nothing to charge you for ending sooner.

An early-repayment penalty exists to recover the interest a lender expected to earn over the remaining term. It makes some sense on a long, fixed-rate facility where the lender has priced years of income into the deal. It makes little sense on a small, short-term loan, where the cost is charged for the days the money is actually out — and where the whole point is to cover a short, defined gap and clear it.

Credicorp charges no early-repayment penalty on any of its products. If the company can repay sooner than agreed, it does, and there is nothing extra to pay for doing so. The borrower is the company, and the agreement is simply discharged early. That is the position restated across the operator's terms and on its customer site at credicorp.co.uk.

Daily interest: repay early, pay fewer days

On the Bridging Loan and Flex, interest is charged per day on the balance. End it sooner and the days simply stop.

The Business Bridging Loan charges 0.25% per day on the outstanding principal, and Credicorp Flex charges the same daily rate on the drawn balance only. Because interest accrues by the day, repaying early means the interest stops accruing on the day the balance is cleared. You pay for the days you used, and no more. The one-off £5 establishment fee is a fixed charge for setting the facility up, not a charge that grows with time.

So a £300 Bridging Loan taken over an agreed 30 days, but repaid on day 20, carries 20 days of interest rather than 30 — the interest simply tracks the shorter period. The exact effect for any amount and any number of days is something you can model in the Bridging Loan cost calculator and the Flex facility cost calculator. The general principle that a short daily-interest loan rewards early settlement is also why an annualised rate overstates its real cash cost — see flat fees versus APR.

Credicorp Slice: the unused-fee refund

Slice is priced on a flat fee, not daily interest — so early repayment works through a refund of the unused part.

Credicorp Slice is different in shape. It splits a supplier bill of £50 to £2,000 into three or four instalments over up to eight weeks, for a flat fee of 6% of the bill — there is no daily interest. Because the fee is fixed at the outset, early repayment cannot work by stopping the clock. Instead, Slice refunds the unused portion of the fee: if the company settles the plan early, the part of the 6% fee that related to the time not used is refunded. Early repayment is free, and the unused fee comes back. That treatment is set out on the products page and on the operator's product page at credicorp.co.uk/credicorp-slice.

The effect is the same in spirit as daily interest on the other two products: a company that no longer needs the full term does not pay for the time it did not use. How Slice works overall, and where it fits against a loan, is covered in paying suppliers in instalments.

The 100% cost cap as a ceiling

Even before early repayment is considered, the total cost can never exceed the amount borrowed.

Every Credicorp product carries a 100% cost cap: the total cost of borrowing — interest plus fees — never exceeds the amount borrowed. That ceiling holds regardless of how the loan runs, so a company can never end up repaying more than double the principal. Early repayment sits underneath that cap: clearing the balance sooner brings the cost down further still. The cap fixes the worst case; early repayment improves on it. How the cap works in full, and what it protects a company borrower from, is the subject of cost caps explained.

ProductHow early repayment works
Business Bridging LoanDaily interest stops on the day the balance is cleared; no penalty.
Credicorp FlexInterest accrues on the drawn balance only; repay and it stops; no penalty.
Credicorp SliceFlat fee, with the unused portion refunded on early settlement; no penalty.

Illustrative of how each product behaves on early repayment. Confirm the live terms at the point of application; figures depend on amount, term and timing.

What this means for a director

Taken together, the position is straightforward. A company can borrow for a short, defined need, and if the money it was waiting for arrives sooner, it can clear the loan and pay less — never more for ending early. That makes short-term credit a genuinely flexible tool rather than a trap, provided it is used for a time-boxed purpose with a clear repayment source. Using it that way is the discipline set out in avoiding over-borrowing, and knowing when a loan is the wrong answer at all is covered in the operator's note, when not to borrow.

Where to go next

Model an early repayment →