How drawdown works

Drawdown is the moment the money you have borrowed leaves us and lands in your company’s bank account. It is the practical end of the application process: once your Business Loan Agreement is signed and final checks are clear, there is nothing more for you to do but watch for the payment to arrive. This article explains what happens, how quickly, and what can hold things up.

When drawdown happens

We release funds after two things are true: you have signed the Business Loan Agreement, and our final verification has passed. We typically approve within an hour and fund the same business day. If you sign and clear checks in the morning of a working day, the money is usually with you that afternoon; sign late in the evening or over a weekend and it will normally reach you the next business day.

The exact timing of the credit appearing in your account depends partly on your own bank and the payment rails it uses. Most UK business accounts receive funds sent by Faster Payments within minutes to a couple of hours, but some banks batch incoming payments. We do our part promptly; the last leg is between the payment network and your bank.

Where the money goes

Funds are paid to the company’s nominated business bank account — the same account we verified during your application. We do not pay loan proceeds to a personal account, to a director, or to a third party. This protects you: it keeps the borrowing clearly with the company, where the business purpose sits, and it reduces the room for fraud. We lend to the company, not to its director personally, and there is no personal guarantee, so the company’s account is the right destination.

If the account we hold on file is wrong or out of date, drawdown cannot complete until it is corrected and re-verified, so check it before you sign. For a one-time Business Loan Agreement there is a single drawdown of the full sum — you receive the whole amount at once, not in instalments.

What can delay it

A handful of things commonly slow drawdown down:

• An unsigned or partially signed agreement — every required signature must be in place.
• Bank details that do not match the verified company account, or a recently changed account we have not re-checked.
• A final identity or anti-fraud check that needs a quick confirmation from you.
• Sending late in the day, at a weekend or on a bank holiday, when payment networks and banks process less quickly.

If we need anything from you at this stage we will contact you using the details on your account. Remember that we will never ask you to move money to a “safe account” or send funds anywhere to “release” your loan — genuine drawdown only ever pays money to you, never asks you to pay first.

After the money lands

Your repayment schedule starts from the dates set out in your agreement and on your Key Information Sheet (KIS). Repayments are weekly or fortnightly, collected from the company account by Direct Debit. Keep enough cleared funds in the account on each collection date.

You can see your balance, your schedule and your documents at any time by signing in to your customer portal. If you want to understand exactly what changes once the agreement is live — your obligations, your cooling-off options and how servicing works — read after you sign the Business Loan Agreement. Both are good first stops in the days right after drawdown.

In short: drawdown is fast, it is a single payment to your company’s verified account, and the clock on your schedule starts from there. If anything looks wrong with the amount or the timing, contact us straight away rather than waiting.