Introducing our new long-term small business loan

We've launched a new five year product designed to help small and micro businesses access the finance they need to grow and expand.

Small businesses can now borrow up to £350,000 over up to five years with interest rates starting from 4.5 percent per annum, giving them access to greater purchasing power for longer term investments. The new loan product will support new and existing customers, allowing iwoca to cater to an ever more diverse array of financing requirements.

iwoca’s new long term loan product has been described as straightforward and intuitive following a successful pilot scheme. Charles Burch, Managing Director of EXF Fitness, a solutions provider to the fitness industry, said: “I recently took out a long-term loan from iwoca in order to increase our manufacturing capabilities.”

“In the past, we had to outsource some of the more sophisticated processes involved in our work, such as laser cutting and plasma cutting. Thanks to iwoca, we were able to buy our own equipment to do these jobs for us, allowing us to prototype faster. The process of securing the loan was simple, quick and painless.”

In addition, iwoca has raised the ceiling of its revolving credit facilities by £50,000 to a maximum of £200,000. This now gives small and micro businesses access to between £1,000 and £200,000 on demand for up to 12 months. iwoca’s revolving credit facilities are available on demand through business accounting app Xero, business banking app Tide, and online marketplaces Funding Options and Funding Xchange.

More than 20,000 businesses have accessed a total of £500 million of finance through iwoca, one of the largest alternative lenders to small businesses across Europe. While traditional bank lending to small businesses is in decline, iwoca has sought to increase access for those businesses owners who feel abandoned by the banks. As a result, more than 26,000 companies signed up to the iwoca platform in Q1 2018 alone, an increase of 104 percent over the same quarter in 2017.

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Christoph Rieche, Chief Executive of iwoca, said: "Small businesses are the cornerstone of the UK economy. Traditional small business lending has been in decline since 2012 as a result of the continued lack of action by the banks to increase access to finance for this sector of the economy.”

Christoph continued: “iwoca’s new business loan is a product that traditional banks have long offered, however, the difference is that we have built technology to make the application process frictionless and straightforward, and make faster and fairer lending decisions, removing the obstacles small businesses face in accessing finance.”

The seamless sign-up process at iwoca allows small business owners to apply for credit without having to deal with endless paperwork and long waiting times, while having access to dedicated account managers to answer any questions they have. This human-led, technology-enabled, approach distinguishes the company from other lenders and has earned iwoca a 9.6/10 rating from over 3,000 TrustPilot reviews.

This focus on quality customer experience has helped iwoca make significant inroads against traditional sources of finance. In the first quarter of 2018, iwoca’s credit line approvals represented nearly 10 percent of the total number of small business overdrafts approved by all the banks combined.

In September 2018, iwoca was ranked the fastest growing business finance provider in the UK at number 30 on the Sunday Times Tech Track 100. The company aims to reach an estimated 100,000 small businesses over the next five years.