What happens when you apply for a business loan with Portman?

Originally Written in Dec 2024 as part of the Holiday Advent Series – The Workshop

As both lender and broker, we process over 32,000 finance applications each year, but when you send in your enquiry, what happens to it, what goes on behind the scenes?

The Loan Enquiry

Most businesses start their application in one of two ways:

• Completing an enquiry form on the website.
• Receiving a call from one of our account managers.

Initially we ask for your company details, how much you want to borrow, whether you’re personally a homeowner and for a few contact details. Why? Knowing who you are and what you are looking for helps us allocate your enquiry to a person whose experience fits your requirements. It also gives us a head start in assessing the possible sources of funding for your requirement and type of business.

The Discussion

You’ll have a chat with one of our team to understand your business and your needs. We’ll cover an overview of what your business does and your objectives, your credit and trading situation as well as your personal situation.

Freddie Davidson – Senior Broker at Portman explains how the initial conversation goes:

“We’ll have a chat about the main activities of the business, how you generate revenue and how long the business has been trading. We’ll talk about what you would like to spend the money on, covering how the business has evolved and where you’re going. We do take a responsible approach, so it’s important to understand how the additional funding will help secure the business or help generate additional income.”

“I’ll ask my customers what terms they are looking for. But part of my role is to help the owners understand what options are available to them, what product might be a good fit, and whether longer or shorter term funding would also be viable options.”

“As we’re talking, I’ll start to work out what this customer’s maximum borrowing amount could be and whether that fits their current needs. Based on the funding requirement, I can assess if this situation meets our own underwriting requirements or that of one of our lending panel. In addition, thinking about where we have successfully funded this type of requirement before, means I’m more likely to get the customer what they need.”

“I’ll then finish off by walking the customer through the rest of the process and requesting documents.”

The Request for Documents

If we think we can help with your requirement, your conversation with the account team will end with a request for a couple of business documents.

We will typically ask for:

• 6-months’ worth of bank statements – we do need to look at the business balance sheet.
• Your last set of full filed accounts – it’s important we can prove the annual trading position of the business.
• Some Identity documents – obviously we need to evidence who you are.
• Any quotations or invoices – so we can work with your suppliers where necessary.

The Proposal & Getting An Offer

Once we have your documents and an understanding of the products that might be right for you, this is where Portman comes into their own.

We use our expertise and understanding of the market to uncover sources of funding that meet your needs. We aim to get you all the funding you require at rates tailored to your situation. Unlike banks or traditional lenders, we can then also create what’s called a syndicated deal. This involves combining sources of funding to pay for different elements of a project, allowing us to cover a whole project or meet a total funding requirement.

Once we have a good idea of how to fund your project, each case is discussed with one of our directors to make sure we have answered every question and explored every possibility. The quality of what we do, and continuous improvement is important to keep providing an excellent service.

Our Sales Support team will work alongside our brokers to pull your proposal together and prepare business cases for lenders where necessary. We complete all the documentation and pitch your requirement to each lender, aiming to get an acceptance for your funding.

The Acceptance

We hope to get acceptances for all our customers. If successful, we can then talk about the terms you’ve been offered. Assuming you accept, we’ll then start the process of final checks and transferring funds.

As a specialist lender and broker, we offer our own funding as well as use our panel of over 45 specialist lenders to support the needs of our customers. Whether you believe you have the strongest credit rating or your trading history is more complex, get in touch and we will source rates tailored to your needs and situation.

Written by Saul Michelson

Head of Marketing

Degree and Post-Grad qualified with 23 years business-to-business experience, Saul is a well-rounded senior professional. A previous winner of Marketing Week’s ‘Best B2B Campaign’ award and two Construction Marketing Awards, Saul enjoys finding out what makes businesses tick and writing articles that get straight to the point.

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