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Business finance, in plain English.
Finance has a language of its own, and it is easy to feel you are nodding along to words no one ever defined. This glossary explains the terms used across this site, in plain English — from body corporate to cost cap. And a recurring theme throughout: on every Credicorp product, the company borrows, never you personally.
You should not need a dictionary to borrow sensibly for your company. The terms below come up again and again across our pages, so here they are, defined once, clearly, with no salesmanship.
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. Several entries below describe how a particular term applies to the three live products; the full detail, and the live figures, are on the products page and with the lender at credicorp.co.uk.
One definition is worth stating up front. Throughout this site 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.
The glossary
Alphabetical, plain English, no jargon to explain the jargon. Figures quoted are the lender’s published product facts and can change — always check the live product page.
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| APR (annual percentage rate) | A way of expressing the cost of credit as a yearly percentage, so different products can be compared on one figure. APR is most useful for borrowing held for a year or more. For short-term business credit measured in days or weeks, the total cost in pounds over the period you actually borrow is usually the more honest guide. |
| Article 60B | The provision in the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Regulated Activities) Order 2001 that defines a regulated credit agreement. Lending to a body corporate falls outside it, which is why lending to a UK company is exempt business lending rather than consumer credit. See our lending and regulation page. |
| Body corporate | A legal entity with its own identity separate from the people who run or own it — a UK limited company, LLP or PLC. Because a body corporate is a person in law, it can borrow in its own name. Credicorp lends only to bodies corporate, never to individuals or sole traders. |
| Companies House | The UK registrar of companies. Every limited company and LLP is registered there, with a public record of its officers, accounts and registered office. A lender to a company will typically verify the borrower against its Companies House record. |
| Cost cap | A hard ceiling on how much credit can ever cost. Every Credicorp product caps the total cost at 100% of the amount borrowed, so whatever happens, you can never repay more than double the principal in charges. It is a protection that keeps the cost of short-term credit from running away. |
| Debenture | A formal document by which a company grants a lender security over its assets — often a floating charge over the business as a whole. It is common in larger secured lending. Credicorp’s short-term products are unsecured and do not involve a debenture or a personal guarantee. |
| Drawdown | The act of actually taking money from a credit facility. With a revolving facility you draw down what you need, when you need it, rather than receiving the whole limit at once. With Credicorp Flex you pay interest only on the amount you have drawn down, not the undrawn limit. |
| Establishment fee | A one-off fee charged to set up a facility, separate from interest. On a Credicorp Business Bridging Loan it is a one-time £5, and on Credicorp Flex a one-time £5 charged on your first drawdown. It is disclosed up front and counts towards the cost cap. |
| Flat fee | A single fixed charge for credit, set as a percentage of the amount and not accruing day by day. Credicorp Slice uses a flat fee of 6% of the bill, charged once — so you know the whole cost before you commit, with no daily interest to track. |
| LLP (limited liability partnership) | A partnership that is also a body corporate, so the business has its own legal identity and the members’ liability is limited. An LLP can borrow in its own name. Credicorp lends to LLPs as it does to limited companies and PLCs. |
| Ltd (private limited company) | The most common UK company form — a body corporate owned by shareholders whose liability is limited to what they have put in. The company is a separate legal person from its directors, which is why it, not the director, is the borrower on a Credicorp agreement. |
| Open Banking | A secure, regulated way for a business to share read-only access to its bank transaction data with a provider it chooses. A lender can use it to run an affordability check on a company’s real cash flow quickly and safely, instead of relying on posted statements. |
| Personal guarantee | A promise by an individual — usually a director — to repay a company’s debt personally if the company cannot. It puts the director’s own money, and sometimes their home, on the line. Credicorp products carry no personal guarantee: the company is the borrower, full stop. |
| PLC (public limited company) | A body corporate whose shares can be offered to the public, subject to a higher minimum share capital and stricter reporting. A PLC borrows in its own name like any other company. Credicorp lends to PLCs alongside limited companies and LLPs. |
| Principal | The amount of money actually borrowed, before any interest or fees. Interest on a Credicorp Business Bridging Loan is charged on the outstanding principal, so as you pay the principal down, the interest falls with it. |
| Revolving facility | A credit line a company can draw on, repay and draw on again up to an agreed limit, rather than a one-off lump sum. Credicorp Flex is a revolving facility: useful when needs rise and fall, because you only pay for what you draw and can reuse the headroom as you repay. |
| Secured vs unsecured | Secured borrowing is backed by specific assets a lender can claim if it is not repaid; unsecured borrowing is not. Credicorp’s short-term products are unsecured business credit — no charge over assets, no debenture and no personal guarantee. |
| Term | The length of time over which borrowing is repaid. A Credicorp Business Bridging Loan has a fixed term of 14 to 84 days; Credicorp Slice runs across 3 or 4 instalments over up to 8 weeks; Credicorp Flex is ongoing on a 14-day cycle. Matching the term to the need is the heart of using finance well. |
| Working capital | The everyday cash a business needs to keep trading — to buy stock, pay staff and settle suppliers while it waits to be paid. Short-term working-capital finance is designed to cover the gap between money going out and money coming back in. |
Two terms earn their own pages. For the regulatory ones — Article 60B and body corporate — see lending and regulation. For how the cost terms play out across the three products, see the products page.
A word on the regulatory terms
Two entries above — body corporate and Article 60B — sit at the heart of how Credicorp lending works, so they are worth a sentence more. Because Credicorp lends only to bodies corporate, and because lending to a body corporate falls outside Article 60B of the FSMA Regulated Activities Order 2001, this is exempt business lending rather than a regulated consumer-credit agreement.
In plain terms, that means these products are for UK companies, never for individuals or sole traders, and the consumer-credit protections that apply to personal borrowing do not apply here. The full position, set out carefully, is on our lending and regulation page and on the group site, creditcorpgroup.co.uk.
Where to go next
- The cash-flow gap, explained — the working-capital terms above, put to work.
- Short-term vs long-term finance — matching the term of borrowing to the life of the need.
- Is short-term borrowing right for you? — an honest decision aid, including when not to borrow.
- The three products — where the cost terms above are set out in full.
- Lending & regulation — body corporate and Article 60B in detail.
- creditcorpgroup.co.uk — the deeper group, company and regulation detail.
When a product is the right fit, applying, drawing down and managing your account all happen on the lender’s site, credicorp.co.uk.
Now you speak the language
See how the terms above land across the three products — or apply on the lender’s site, credicorp.co.uk.