General Questions

We take a number of factors into account to determine our credit decisions. In short, we look at cashflow, management strength, the industry the business is in and its ability to repay the loan.

As part of our credit risk assessment, LendingCrowd will determine an appropriate level of lender protection at the point of entering into a loan agreement. Depending on the size of the loan, this could be in the form of a personal guarantee, third-party guarantee or a charge or asset security.

If a repayment is late, we’ll contact the borrower as soon as possible to establish the reason for this, when we can expect payment and if any support is required. If we don’t receive the payment within four days of the due date, we consider the repayment to be overdue and may charge the borrower a late payment fee. We may also inform credit reference agencies that the borrower has missed a payment. This could affect the business’s and the directors’ credit ratings and therefore their ability to borrow more money.

If the borrower hasn’t paid within 45 days of the repayment date, we’ll consider the loan to be in arrears.

When a borrower can no longer meet their repayment schedule nor pay the outstanding loan, we’ll declare the loan as a default. We’ll identify the outstanding capital as a bad debt. This happens after 90 days – this is a standard adopted in December 2019.

If a loan is declared a default and there’s no clear indication of how and when we’ll receive the payment, we’ll take recovery action. This will include referring the matter to our panel of experts – which includes solicitors, accountants and debt collectors – who’ll provide guidance or act on our behalf, whichever is the most appropriate course of action. Our loans have various types of creditor protection in place, so our recoveries process can involve forcing the sale of assets through a legal process.