™
Working capital between
outlay and harvest.
Farming spends for months before it earns. Seed and feed go in the ground and the troughs, the machinery has to run, and the income arrives in a handful of paydays a year. Short-term finance bridges that long gap, and on every product the company borrows, never you personally. No personal guarantee, no charge over the farm.
Creditcorp is the growing name for the Credicorp group, and Credicorp Limited is the lender behind it. For an incorporated farming or agricultural business, it does one thing: short-term working capital to cover the long stretch when money is going out and the season has not yet paid back.
Few trades carry a cash-flow gap as long as farming’s. An arable company drills, sprays and fertilises a crop a year before it sells it; a dairy unit feeds and beds cattle every day against a milk cheque that arrives monthly and a price it does not set; a beef or sheep farm carries the cost of stock for a full finishing cycle before market day. This page looks at how a Business Bridging Loan, Credicorp Flex or Credicorp Slice tends to be used to bridge those gaps, so you can picture the fit before you apply.
Throughout, the borrower is the company — a UK private limited company (Ltd), LLP or PLC — not the director who signs. That means no personal guarantee, no charge over the farmhouse and no personal credit check on a director. These are not personal loans, payday loans or sole-trader finance. When you’re ready, applying happens on the lender’s own site, credicorp.co.uk.
Why farms run short on cash
It is rarely about whether the farm is profitable over a year. It is about how far apart the spending and the income sit — and in agriculture, that gap is measured in seasons.
Inputs go in long before anything is sold
Seed, fertiliser, sprays, feed, bedding and contractor work all have to be paid for at the start of a cycle — sometimes a full year before the crop is combined or the stock is finished. The merchant wants settling on terms that do not wait for harvest, so a serious sum is tied up in the ground and the sheds long before a single load is weighed off.
Income arrives in a handful of paydays
Most farms are not paid steadily. Income lands in lumps — a harvest sold to the merchant, a batch of finished cattle through the ring, the lambs away, a single annual cheque from a contract. Between those paydays the wages, the diesel, the rent and the standing charges keep coming whether or not anything has sold this month.
Machinery is dear, and it cannot wait
A tractor, combine, baler or milking parlour is a heavy cost, and a breakdown rarely arrives at a convenient moment. A machine down in a narrow weather window — the few dry days that decide the harvest — can cost far more in lost crop than the repair itself, so the cash to fix it or hire a contractor has to be there now.
Subsidies and diversification land on their own clock
Support payments and environmental scheme money come through on a timetable the farm does not control, often well after the work that earned them. And when a farm diversifies — a farm shop, holiday lets, a wedding barn, contracting, renewables — the fit-out and the stock go out before the new income finds its feet. Both leave a gap that short-term finance is built to bridge.
The kinds of funding that fit a farming business
Three plain-English shapes of short-term credit. The detail and the live terms sit with the lender — here is how each tends to be used on the farm.
A Business Bridging Loan — a fixed sum for a known season
A single lump sum into the company account, repaid over a short, fixed term. It suits a one-off, time-boxed gap you can name: an input order before drilling, a feed run to get stock through the winter, an urgent machinery repair mid-harvest, or a deposit to lock in a contractor. You know the figure, and you can see the harvest, the sale or the payment that will clear it coming in.
Credicorp Flex — a line you draw on across the year
A revolving facility the company can dip into and repay as income arrives. For a farm whose money goes out steadily but comes in only at harvest, market or milk-cheque time, it smooths the lean months without taking out a fresh loan each time. You draw through the season, repay when the payday lands, and pay only for what you draw — not the whole limit.
Credicorp Slice — spread a single merchant bill
Got a chunky bill from the agricultural merchant, the feed mill or the machinery dealer you would rather not pay in one hit? Slice settles it in full today and lets the company repay over a few weeks for a flat fee. The supplier relationship stays sweet, the inputs are on farm, and the cost is fixed before you commit.
We don’t publish rates or terms on this page on purpose — they live with the lender so you always see the current figures. Check the live product pages on credicorp.co.uk before you apply.
The company borrows — not you
In a business where the home, the land and the livelihood are usually the same asset, this is the part worth slowing down on.
Nowhere is the line between the business and the family more blurred than on a farm. The farmhouse, the land, the buildings and the income are bound up together, often across generations. So when a bank or a broker asks for a personal guarantee, or a charge over the farm, to fund a season’s inputs, they are asking an owner to put the family home and the holding itself on the line for a working-capital gap — in a sector exposed to weather, disease and prices nobody on the farm controls.
Credicorp is built differently. The agreement is between Credicorp and your company — the Ltd, LLP or PLC that holds the land, the contracts and the bank account. There is no personal guarantee, no charge over the farmhouse or the land and no personal credit check on a director. The company stands on its own trading position, which is exactly how it should be when the money is funding the company’s season.
This is the flip side of the lender’s model: because Credicorp lends only to bodies corporate, it sits outside consumer credit entirely. The full regulatory position is set out on the group site, creditcorpgroup.co.uk/lending-and-regulation.
How it can play out — a worked example
A made-up, clearly anonymised business — not a real customer — just to show the shape of the timing problem.
Picture a mixed arable and beef operation — call it a UK limited company farming a few hundred acres, with a cereal crop in the ground and a batch of store cattle being finished in the sheds. The combinable crop will not be sold until late summer; the cattle are months from being ready for the ring. Both are sound: good ground, fair prices expected, a buyer the farm has dealt with for years. But neither earns a penny yet.
Spring lands all at once. There is fertiliser and spray to put on the growing crop, a feed order to keep the cattle gaining, a diesel bill that never stops, and — right in the middle of it — the forage harvester throws a belt at the worst possible moment, with a dry window closing fast. On paper the year is comfortably profitable. In the bank account, the company is funding a full season of inputs and a surprise repair months before the grain is weighed off or the cattle are sold, with the next support payment still some way out.
Rather than turn to the merchant’s most expensive terms or lean on the director personally, the company bridges the gap with short-term finance against its own trading position — covering the inputs and the repair — and repays as the harvest is sold and the cattle go to market. The subsidy catches up later, on its own timetable, without having held up the season. Same farm, same margin; the difference is simply that the cash was there when the crop and the stock needed it. The figures and the right product for a situation like this are set on the lender at credicorp.co.uk.
Agriculture & farming funding — common questions
The questions farm owners ask most. For anything beyond these, the lender’s team can help.
Can a farming company borrow without a personal guarantee or a charge over the farm?
Yes. Credicorp lends to the company — a UK limited company, LLP or PLC — not to the director who signs. There is no personal guarantee, no charge over the farmhouse or the land, and no personal credit check on a director. The agreement sits between Credicorp and your business, which matters most in farming, where the home and the workplace are so often the same address.
We need to buy seed, feed or fertiliser before the season earns anything. Can funding cover that?
That is one of the most common reasons farm companies look at short-term finance. The inputs go out months before the crop is sold or the stock is finished, so a Business Bridging Loan or Credicorp Slice can cover an input order now, with repayment timed around the income the season eventually brings in. Specifics are set on the lender at credicorp.co.uk.
Our income is seasonal — one or two big paydays a year. Does that work with short-term finance?
It fits exactly that shape. A revolving facility such as Credicorp Flex lets the company draw through the lean months and repay when harvest, the milk cheque, the livestock sale or the subsidy payment lands — so a single annual payday does not have to stretch to cover twelve months of outgoings.
Can we use it for a piece of machinery or an urgent repair in the middle of harvest?
Short-term finance is well suited to a machine that has to keep running. A combine or tractor down in a narrow weather window can cost more in lost time than the repair itself, so a Business Bridging Loan can put the cash in the account quickly to get it fixed or to bring in a contractor, with repayment set against the season ahead.
We are diversifying — a farm shop, holiday lets, a wedding barn. Does that change anything?
Diversification often runs ahead of its own income: you fit out the building or stock the shop before the visitors and the revenue arrive. As long as the venture sits within a UK limited company, LLP or PLC, the same short-term products apply, bridging the gap between the up-front spend and the new income stream finding its feet.
Are you a bank, and is this regulated consumer credit?
No. Credicorp is an exempt business lender, not a bank and not a consumer-credit firm. It lends only to bodies corporate under Article 60B of the FSMA Regulated Activities Order 2001, so this is business credit, not a regulated consumer credit agreement. It is not for sole traders, partnerships in personal names or for borrowing against a private individual.
More general answers live on the Creditcorp FAQ, and the how-it-works overview walks through the whole journey from first look to funds in the bank.
Related sectors
If your farm business overlaps these trades — many do, once diversification gets going — their pages may fit the cash-flow shape too.
- Logistics & transport — covering fuel, plant and wages on long payment terms when you haul your own produce or run a contracting fleet.
- Wholesale & distribution — buying inputs in bulk to hit a price break, then bridging the gap until the season is sold on.
- Hospitality & food — if you’ve diversified into a farm shop, cafe or wedding barn, funding shaped around feast-and-famine cash flow.
Or head back to the full industries overview to see all sixteen sectors. For company, trade-mark and legal detail, the group site is creditcorpgroup.co.uk.
Cover the season ahead
Whatever stretch of the year you’re funding, applying, drawing down and managing your account all happen on the lender’s site, credicorp.co.uk.