How can I get a business loan with bad credit?

Firstly, it’s worth checking your credit score by getting copies of your business credit reports. You can review these for any errors and question anything you believe to be inaccurate with the credit agency. The best next step is to start to increase your creditworthiness. This can be done by using a credit card, or opening a line of credit. There are also sources of funding available, such as Start-Up loans, which help new businesses with no credit history to fund their growth. Alternatively, equity and grant finance may be available that provide you with business loans based on the potential of your company, rather than your creditworthiness. 

We also offer Tide Credit Builder – designed specifically to help small businesses grow their credit worthiness and open up future options for funding.

• Balance adjustments due to chargebacks, disputes or banking recalls (i.e. if someone paid into your account by mistake and asked their bank to recall the payment)

• Offline card transactions (i.e. purchases placed on a plane)

• Pre-authorised card transactions (when you have enough money in your account at the moment you authorised a payment, but you spend that money before it’s actually cleared)

• A refund reversal (when you have received a refund, but the merchant has reversed it after)

We’ll check your balance whenever we're authorising a card payment, but if you’re paying in a non-GBP currency, the cleared amount is subject to the latest exchange rate from Mastercard. If the cleared amount is higher, it’s possible for it to cause a negative balance.

If this happens, just top up your account to resolve the negative balance.