Loan Application Form

First Enterprise - Enterprise Loans (FE-EL) provides loans from £500 - £150,000 to start-ups and SMEs across the East Midlands and South East Midlands, that have workable business plans but cannot access all the finance they need from traditional high street lenders.

The application process is straight forward and can be completed within 5-10 minutes. If, however you don’t have all the information or need additional support, please still submit your application and one of our business advisors will contact you shortly.

You will not be credit checked without your authorisation.

We aim to give you a prompt response in 3-5 working days, but may request further information to make a fair assessment of your proposal.

If you have any queries, please contact us on 0345 602 7355 or reception@first-enterprise.co.uk.

If your business has traded for less than 3 years and you want to borrow from £500 - £25,000, you may wish to apply for a Start Up Loan.

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FE-EL operates an Equal Opportunities policy and to help us monitor the effectiveness of this policy, we ask that all applicants complete this section. Please note that any information given in this section will NOT affect the processing of your application.

This is the application form for business loans ranging from £25,000 - £150,000. If your business has traded for less than 3 years and you want to borrow from £500 - £25,000, you may wish to apply for a Start Up Loan.

The following supporting information is required to progress your application. 

If, however you don’t have all the information or need additional support, please still submit your application and one of our business advisors will contact you shortly.

As part of our assessment, we require full credit searches on all sole traders, partners and directors of the business.

This can be obtained from Experian or TransUnion on the following links: www.experian.co.uk | www.transunionstatreport.co.uk and must be contained within your application.

As a responsible lender, FE-EL is committed to protecting the data that we collect to provide the investments into SME businesses we support across the East and South East Midlands. We only gather information for assessing purposes, disbursing and monitoring the loans we make. We do not buy or sell Personal Data, and we only share a limited amount of data to a small number of trusted organisations who are vital in their support of FE-EL, this means we are dedicated to making sure your data is safe and secure. For more information about how your information is used, how we maintain the security of your information, and your rights to access information held on you, please discuss with your business adviser. FE-EL is funded by a variety of funding organisations, require to information about you and your business to process, monitor and assess their specific fund. It also helps them to develop new services and maintain fraud prevention. For more information on where your data is held, please contact your adviser.

Application Process

Applications must be made on this Application Form.

The application must include the following information:

1. A business plan
2. A cashflow forecast for a minimum of 2 years
3. Latest financial year end accounts
4. Up-to-date management accounts 
5. 6 months most recent and consecutive Business Bank Statements

Further information may be requested later on to make a fair assessment of the applicant's proposal.

Eligibility

Loans are available to Limited Companies, Sole Traders, Partnerships and Social Enterprise Organisations. 

Most sectors will be considered, however there are a few exclusions:

1. Property investment and development
2. Services already covered by local schemes such as education, social welfare, sports, local leisure and cultural facilities
3. Ethically unsound businesses
4. Banks, building societies, insurers and reinsurers (excluding insurance brokers)
5. Public sector bodies
6. State funded primary and secondary schools

Amounts

Loans are available between £500 - £150,000 subject to fund eligibility.

Term

Loans are advanced over a period of 1-5 years. 

No penalties are applied for early repayment.

Interest Rate

All loans are at a fixed rate for the term of the lending.

All loans will be priced at an interest rate of 17%.

Contribution

A minimum client contribution of 15% will be required and must be evidenced in the applicant’s bank account. Please discuss this with your assigned business adviser.

Security

FE-EL may utilise the Recovery Loan Scheme (RLS) for its loans.

Should you gain access to the lending via the RLS facility, you, the borrower, remain responsible for repayment of 100% of the outstanding facility at all times.

Fees

A standard arrangement fee of 3.5% is charged on all loans.

The arrangement fee must be met by the borrower and paid prior to loan drawdown.

Should the loan not be covered by the RLS facility, additional security will be sought (see above). Please discuss with your business adviser what additional costs may apply. The costs of which are to be covered separately by the borrower.

Reporting

All loans will be monitored on a quarterly basis. Your Business Adviser should be your first port of call should you wish to discuss any aspects of your loan.

Financial information and other statistics on the impact of the loan i.e. jobs safeguarded need to be supplied to meet our funding requirements.