Business loan declined by Funding Circle, what next?
Funding Circle has declined your unsecured term-loan application. Funding Circle is one of the best-known UK SMB term-loan platforms, lending £10,000 to £750,000 to limited companies (per its own site), so a decline usually means looking at a different type of lender rather than a second mainstream attempt.
Why this triggers a decline
Funding Circle doesn't publish a full list of its lending criteria, and it doesn't share how often each decline reason occurs. Common reasons a lender like Funding Circle declines include: trading history or turnover too short or too low for its model, weak company or director credit, a recent CCJ or missed payment, a sector it doesn't lend to, and repayments that look unaffordable against current cash flow. Funding Circle says businesses with a poor credit history may still be approved at a higher rate.
Alternatives that work
- MCA against card or gateway flow where Funding Circle's turnover floor is the issue
- Asset finance against specific equipment where credit-file thinness is the issue
- Specialist post-decline lenders for CCJ or missed-payment cases
- iwoca for working capital where the issue is ticket size or trading time
Lenders that may consider this
- iwoca (lower trading-time threshold and smaller-ticket flexi-loan)
- Capify (short-term business loans)
- 365 Business Finance (case-by-case for missed payments, CCJ)
- Liberis (MCA against card flow)
- YouLend (marketplace and gateway flow)
What to do first
- Ask Funding Circle for the main reason for the decline.
- Pull all three personal credit files (Experian, Equifax, TransUnion) for any director on the application; they sometimes disagree.
- If the decline is sub-12-month trading or low turnover, don't reapply to other mainstream lenders, their criteria are the same. Look at MCA or asset finance instead.
- If the decline is CCJ or missed payments, fix what is fixable (satisfy the CCJ, bring arrears current) and consider a specialist post-decline lender.
Not for
Cases where the issue is fundamental (active winding-up notice, undischarged IVA, sanctioned-jurisdiction beneficial owner). Those aren't post-decline route cases; they're restructuring or specialist-counsel cases.
Send an enquiry
Tell us what you need in 2 minutes. FundBiz is not a lender and does not run a credit check. We pass your enquiry to a business finance broker, who will contact you about your options. For limited companies, LLPs and partnerships with four or more partners.
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