™
Reading your own
bank statements.
A lender reads about six months of your business statements before deciding. You can read the same pages first. This guide walks the signals that matter — and on every loan, the company borrows, never you personally.
Your business bank statements are the most honest document your company produces. They are not a pitch and not a forecast — just a record of what actually came in and went out. That is precisely why a lender reads them, and precisely why it pays to read them yourself before you apply.
Creditcorp is the growing name for the Credicorp group, and Credicorp Limited is the lender behind it. This page is a guide to what a careful reader sees in roughly six months of statements, so none of it is a surprise. It is not an application — applying happens on the lender's own site, credicorp.co.uk, where the live requirements are set out.
Throughout, remember who the statements belong to. The borrower is the company — a UK private limited company (Ltd), LLP or PLC — not the director who signs. The account read is the company's business account, not anyone's personal one: no personal guarantee, no charge over a home, no personal credit check on a director. This is not a personal loan, a payday loan or sole-trader finance.
Why six months, and not one
Half a year is the smallest window that tells the truth about a trading rhythm.
A single month is easy to misread. A bumper month can flatter a company that usually runs tight; a flat month can libel one that simply had a quiet few weeks. Around six months smooths that out. It is long enough to show a busy stretch and a slow one, a quarterly VAT payment, a rent run, a seasonal lull — the things that make a real business look uneven up close and steady from a step back.
So when you open your own statements, resist the urge to judge the latest balance. Read across the months instead. The question a lender is asking is not "how much is in there today?" but "does this company reliably bring in enough to cover what it spends, and would a new repayment sit comfortably alongside the rest?" Read your pages with that question in mind and you are reading them the way they will be read.
The signals a reader looks for
None of these is a pass-or-fail test on its own. Together they sketch how the company trades.
- The shape of the balance: does the account sit in credit most of the time, or hover near zero? A steady working balance reads more calmly than a high one that swings hard between paydays.
- Money in versus money out: over the whole window, does income broadly keep pace with spending, or is the trend quietly downhill? Direction matters as much as any single total.
- Regular income: recognisable, recurring receipts — customer payments, card settlements, contract income — show the company has dependable revenue, not just the odd lump.
- Existing commitments: rent, wages, tax, loan or finance repayments and Direct Debits already going out. A reader adds a new repayment on top in their head and checks it still fits.
- Returned and unpaid items: bounced Direct Debits, failed payments, unauthorised overdraft use. Occasional and explained is noise; frequent and unexplained is a signal.
- End-of-period pressure: balances that scrape the bottom right before money lands each month suggest a company running with little headroom — worth knowing before you borrow against it.
How to read them yourself
A few minutes with your own statements tells you most of what a lender will see.
Do this first
- Pull the last six months for the company's main trading account, and skim them as a set rather than one at a time.
- Find the typical balance — the level it tends to return to, not the highest or lowest point. That is your real working cushion.
- Trace the trend from the oldest month to the newest. Roughly flat or rising is reassuring; a steady slide is worth understanding before you borrow.
- Tot up the fixed outgoings — rent, wages, tax, finance — then picture a new repayment on top. Does it still fit without scraping the bottom?
Then look honestly for
- Returned payments and any unauthorised overdraft days. If there are a few, note why — a one-off you can explain reads very differently from a habit.
- Lumpy income that hides a gap. One big receipt can mask several thin weeks either side; a lender sees the weeks, not just the lump.
- Drawings and transfers out that leave the account tight. Money leaving for non-trading reasons is read as money the business cannot lean on.
- The gap a loan would bridge — if you can point to the specific cash-flow squeeze, you understand your own statements as well as any reader will. See the cash-flow gap, explained.
What this read is — and is not
Reading statements is an assessment of the business, full stop. It looks at how the company's own account behaves over time. It is not a personal credit check on a director, and a director's personal consumer file is not part of it. A clean, steady company account is the point — not anyone's personal score.
Nor is it a hurdle designed to catch you out. Responsible lending means only lending what a company can comfortably repay, which protects the business as much as the lender. If you connect it, Open Banking shares the same data securely and read-only, with your consent, so you need not export and upload files by hand. What you actually need to apply is set out in what you need to apply.
One thing about who can borrow
Credicorp lends only to bodies corporate — UK limited companies and LLPs. Under Article 60B of the FSMA Regulated Activities Order 2001, lending to a body corporate is not a regulated consumer-credit agreement, so this is business credit rather than consumer credit, and it is not for sole traders or for borrowing in a personal name. The full position is set out on lending and regulation.
Statement-reading questions
The questions directors ask most. For anything specific to your business, the lender's team are at credicorp.co.uk.
Why does a lender ask for around six months of statements?
Six months is long enough to show a rhythm rather than a single moment — a quiet month and a busy one, a quarterly bill, a seasonal dip. One month can mislead in either direction; half a year shows how the company actually trades, which is the honest basis for an affordability decision.
What is the first thing a lender looks at?
Usually the shape of the balance over time, not a single closing figure. A reader wants to see whether the account spends most of the period in credit, how deep and how often it dips, and whether money in broadly keeps pace with money out. A steady working balance tells a calmer story than a high balance that swings hard.
Do returned or bounced payments count against the company?
They are read in context, not as an automatic mark. An occasional returned Direct Debit on an otherwise steady account is noise; a pattern of unpaid items, frequent unauthorised overdraft use or round-the-clock balances near zero is a signal worth understanding. Spotting it yourself first lets you explain it rather than be surprised by it.
Is reading my statements a personal credit check?
No. Business bank statements show how the company trades; reading them is an assessment of the business, not of a director's personal consumer credit file, which is not checked for this lending. The company is the borrower, so the company's account is what matters.
Do I have to send statements as files?
Not necessarily. Where you connect it, Open Banking shares read-only access to the same data securely and with your consent, so the lender sees recent trading without you exporting PDFs. The lender sets out what it needs at application — check the current detail at credicorp.co.uk.
Where to go next
Once you have read your own pages, the companion guides cover what the lender does with them and what comes next: how affordability is assessed explains the wider check around your statements, what you need to apply lists everything to have to hand, and how business bridging loans work shows how the borrowing itself is priced and repaid. The full terms for all three products are on the products page, sector context lives on industries, and the whole series sits on the Learn hub. For the deeper group and legal story, see creditcorpgroup.co.uk.
Ready when you are
Applying, drawing down and managing your account all happen on the lender's site, credicorp.co.uk.