Small business loan
Get a small business loan to kick start your small business. Our guide to your small business loans written by business planning professionals. The place most people begin is with their banks but there are many other avenues if you have talked to your bank and the chances of success are low. All lenders will want to see a solid business plan before they will assess the risk of you receiving a loan so have that to hand before asking for any money of any kind.
Everything is here to save you time to get your small business loan; and there's also a load of help to enable you to get your own unique loan for your business.
Improve your chances of loan success
Small businesses sometimes need a business loan for many reasons to develop and grow and find additional customers. Our small business loan guide will show you how to get a loan for your small business
- Who's offering what
- Some of the best deals
- How to apply
- Why you may get turned down
Small business government loan
The government has a small business loan scheme and you can read more at our page on the small business loan guarantee. This generally requires you to place down 25% security (maybe your house as deposit) and the government scheme guarantees the rest of it. Bear in mind that this is administered through the UK banks and not the government itself. Read the information on the link above and then it's best to directly approach your own bank first if you want to apply for the small business government loan scheme.
Also try the onelondon loan scheme. This looks at lending smaller loans to smaller businesses (termed micro businesses). Really this is for loans around the £2000 mark rather than anything more. There are a few other organisations that cater for micro businesses, but these may not be for you as the interest rates are normally very high (really due to the fact the set up costs have to be recovered somehow)
Small business bank loans
All of the banks provide loans to small businesses and it's probably best to approach your bank in the first instance to see what they can do for you. Remember that at some point you will require a business plan to outline how you will pay the loan and to attempt to mitigate the risk on the bank. Here are links to some of the major banks:
Small business personal Loans
You can finance your start-up through personal loans - secured or not. One thing to bear in mind is that if you are a sole trader that any loans you are personally liable for if for any reason the business does not succeed. Many people have lost their homes because they have remortgaged to start businesses so please take professional advice before thinking of going down this route.
Credit Cards
To improve your cashflow you should ensure you do not have outstanding balances on credit cards. You would not want to rely on this form of funding because the rates of interest are so very high so check with your accountant for other forms of finance.
Other forms of finance
You can get some government grants depending on what type of business venture you are thinking of starting. These are far and few so there are not many schemes from central government but there may be regional schemes to get people back to work. There are various incentive programs for taking on staff and apprentices so check with the HMRC site to see what are on offer. You could also borrow money from family and friends but we suggest keeping business and personal lives seperate.