When your company applies, part of the assessment is a look at its business credit file. People often ask exactly which agencies we consult, so here is a plain answer.
The agencies we consult
We check the company's file with one or more of the main UK business credit reference agencies:
- Experian Business — commercial credit files and a delinquency score built from payment performance and public data.
- Creditsafe — company credit reports and scores widely used by lenders and suppliers.
- Equifax Business — commercial credit reporting and scoring through its business arm.
We do not always check all three on every application. Which agency or agencies we use can depend on the company and the product you are applying for. Each agency holds its own data and runs its own model, so a company can score differently with each — there is no single universal business score.
These are business agencies, not personal ones
The agencies above hold information about companies, not about you as an individual. That matters because the borrowing is recorded against the company's credit picture, not your personal consumer file, and we never take a personal guarantee. We do run an identity and anti-money-laundering check on you as a director, but that is a separate step from the company credit search. If you want the fuller picture of how these agencies work and how your own company can check its file, see business credit reference agencies explained.
Soft search, then hard search
At the early eligibility stage, any check is a soft (quotation) search. A soft search is visible to you but not to other lenders, and it leaves no mark that affects how your company is seen elsewhere. A recorded hard search happens only when you move to a full application, and we tell you about the type of search before we run it. We set out what we send back to the agencies in what does Credicorp share with business credit reference agencies?
How the file feeds the decision
The agency file is one of three inputs into the outcome, alongside how the company trades and how its business bank account behaves. No single entry decides the result on its own — we explain the wider role of the search in why a credit search is part of the decision, and how the bank-account read fits in how your bank data affects the decision.
Credicorp lends only to UK limited companies and LLPs for business purposes. As an exempt lender, the Financial Ombudsman Service and FSCS do not apply to this borrowing.
See also: Can I ask a person to review an automated decision?, Can I find out why I was declined?, Can I reapply after a decline?.