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Working capital for the print floor.
Print and signage pay out before they get paid — paper, ink and vinyl bought for a job that settles on delivery, a press slot booked, a wide-format run loaded. These plain-English notes look at how short-term finance fits a UK print or sign company, and on every one, the company borrows, never you personally. No personal guarantee.
Few trades carry as much cost up front as print. A job is quoted, the stock is ordered, the press is run and the work goes out the door — and only then does the invoice clock start ticking. The bigger the run, the bigger the gap between the materials you buy today and the payment that lands a month or two later.
Creditcorp is the growing name for the Credicorp group, and Credicorp Limited is the lender behind it. It does one thing: short-term working capital for incorporated UK businesses. This page is a guide, not an application — when you’re ready, applying happens on the lender’s own site, credicorp.co.uk.
Throughout, the borrower is the company — a UK private limited company (Ltd), LLP or PLC — not the director who signs. No personal guarantee, no charge over a home, no personal credit check on a director. These are not personal loans, payday loans or sole-trader finance.
Where the cash-flow gaps come from
Print money leaves the workshop in a lump at the start of a job and comes back at the end of it — sometimes long after. Four pressure points show up again and again.
Materials bought job-by-job
Paper, board, ink, toner, vinyl, foamex, acrylic, banner media — every job starts with a stock buy, and the price of a pallet of paper or a roll of substrate has to be paid on the supplier’s terms, not the customer’s. You commit the cost before the first sheet runs, and you carry it until the finished work is delivered and invoiced.
Presses and wide-format kit
A litho or digital press, a large-format printer, a laminator, a CNC router or a flatbed cutter is the engine of the business, and the bill for a new line or a major service lands in one go. Even where the machine itself is on asset finance, the deposit, installation and the consumables to get it earning are a working-capital outlay before it pays for itself.
Big runs and signage projects up front
A large print run or a full signage fit-out — shopfront, wayfinding, vehicle graphics, an exhibition stand — ties up real cash in stock and machine time weeks before it’s installed and signed off. The single biggest jobs, the ones worth winning, are the ones that demand the most outlay before a penny comes back.
Slow-paying trade and contract clients
Agencies, contractors, councils and corporate buyers pay on their own terms — 30, 60, sometimes 90 days. You’ve paid for the paper and run the press; now you wait. When several of those invoices sit open at once, a profitable order book can still leave the bank account tight.
Which kind of finance fits a print shop
Three shapes of short-term working capital, and how each tends to land in print and signage. The detail — amounts, pricing, terms — lives on the products page and with the lender; we won’t quote figures here.
A Business Bridging Loan — for a known, one-off job
A single lump sum, repaid over a short fixed term. It fits the print jobs you can put a figure on: the materials for a big named run, a signage project against a signed order, the consumables to get a new press earning. You know the cost and you can see the invoice that will clear it. More on the Bridging Loan →
Credicorp Flex — for a busy order book
A revolving facility the company can draw on, repay and draw again. This suits a workshop with several jobs in flight at once — buying stock for the next run while you’re still waiting on the last invoice, then paying down as customers settle — without arranging fresh finance every time. More on Credicorp Flex →
Credicorp Slice — for a single supplier bill
Spread one supplier invoice over a few weeks while the supplier is paid in full today. Handy when a paper merchant’s or media supplier’s bill for a big order lands before the customer who ordered the work has paid you. More on Credicorp Slice →
The company borrows — not you
Plenty of print-shop owners have already signed personal guarantees they didn’t love — a unit lease, an equipment line, a paper-merchant account. The Credicorp model is the other way round: the agreement is between Credicorp Limited and your company, so the finance itself doesn’t add to what’s pinned to your own name.
- No personal guarantee — the company is the borrower, full stop.
- No charge over your home — your house isn’t security for paper and ink.
- No personal credit check on a director — the lender looks at the business, not your own file.
- Bodies corporate only — UK Ltd, LLP or PLC, never a sole trader or an individual.
This is exempt business lending under Article 60B of the FSMA Regulated Activities Order 2001, not consumer credit. The full regulatory position — and the company and trade-mark detail behind the group — is set out on the group site, creditcorpgroup.co.uk.
A worked example
An illustration, not a real customer — just to show the shape of it in print and signage.
A signage and large-format company trading as a UK limited company wins a multi-site rebrand for a retail chain: new shopfront signs, interior graphics and a run of vehicle wraps across the fleet. It’s the biggest single order on the books that year — but it means buying a large volume of vinyl, aluminium composite and lamination film, plus booking weeks of wide-format and fitting time, all before the chain pays on its standard 60-day terms.
Because the job is one-off and the payback is a known invoice on completion, a fixed-term Business Bridging Loan to the company funds the materials and the machine time together: a known sum, repaid once the customer settles. The agreement is with the company, so the owner gives no personal guarantee and puts no charge over their home. With a second contract running alongside it, a Credicorp Flex facility would let the shop carry both jobs’ materials at once without arranging finance twice.
Printing & signage funding questions
The questions print and sign owners ask most. For anything specific to your business, the lender’s team are at credicorp.co.uk.
Can my print company borrow to buy materials before a job pays?
Yes — funding the paper, board, ink, vinyl or substrate for a job that won’t pay until it’s delivered is one of the most common reasons a printer uses short-term finance. The outlay is concrete and the payback is the invoice you raise on completion. A Business Bridging Loan suits one big named job; Credicorp Flex suits a workshop that buys materials run after run. The specifics live with the lender at credicorp.co.uk.
Can I use it towards a new press or a wide-format machine?
It can help with the working-capital side of a kit decision — a deposit, an installation, the consumables and materials to get a new line earning, or bridging the gap while a machine beds in. Credicorp lends short-term working capital, not long-term asset finance, so for the machine purchase itself the lender will tell you what fits and what sits better with an asset-finance route. Talk it through at credicorp.co.uk.
Will I have to give a personal guarantee or a charge over my home?
No. Credicorp lends to the company — your UK limited company, LLP or PLC — not to you as a director. There is no personal guarantee, no charge over a home and no personal credit check on a director. For a print-shop owner who has already signed personal guarantees on a lease or an equipment line, keeping this funding off your own name is a real difference.
A customer wants a big run but pays on 60-day terms — does that help?
That gap is exactly the shape short-term working capital is built for. You buy the stock and run the job now; the customer settles weeks later. A Bridging Loan covers a single large run against a known invoice, while Credicorp Flex lets a busier shop carry several jobs in flight at once. The lender confirms what suits your order book.
Is this a consumer loan or a payday loan?
Neither. This is business credit to a body corporate, not consumer credit, and it is not for sole traders or anyone borrowing in their own name. Under Article 60B of the FSMA Regulated Activities Order 2001, lending to a UK company sits outside the consumer-credit regime. The full position is on the group site, creditcorpgroup.co.uk.
How quickly can funds reach my business account?
That sits with the operating lender, but business loans are typically released to your company bank account on the same working day once the agreement is signed. In print, where a paper price or a press slot can be short-lived, that speed is usually the point. Apply or check timing at credicorp.co.uk.
More general questions are answered on the FAQ, and the whole journey is on the how-it-works overview.
Related sectors
Print and signage share their make-to-order, pay-on-completion cash-flow shape with their neighbours.
- Manufacturing — the same raw-materials-first, invoice-later rhythm on a production line.
- Creative & media — agencies and studios that commission the print and wait on client settlement.
- Construction & trades — buying materials up front against a job that pays on completion or valuation.
Or browse the whole set on the industries hub. Company and legal detail for the group lives on creditcorpgroup.co.uk.
Ready when you are
Whatever your print or signage business needs funding for, applying, drawing down and managing your account all happen on the lender’s site, credicorp.co.uk.