Funding Circle was founded in 2010 to help small businesses get the funding they need to grow. As of today, they have successfully lent 118,000 small businesses a total of £13.1 billion in finance.

Funding Circle is a peer-to-peer lending platform, which means that individual investors pool their money to lend to businesses. The investors can receive a better interest rate than they would with cash savings accounts. Read our guide for more information about how peer-to-peer lending works.

Because Funding Circle isn’t a traditional bank they can offer competitive terms to both borrowers and lenders. They can afford to undercut bank interest rates whilst also offering investors better interest rates than they would get with a savings account.

In This Review

• Funding Circle Business Loan: Overall Review
• Summary of loans
• Customer Reviews and Ratings
• How to contact Funding Circle

Funding Circle Business Loan Overall Review

Funding Circle is a peer-to-peer lending company designed with small businesses in mind. If you’re looking for a simple business loan with reasonable interest rates then their loans may be right for you. Their application process is simple and you can use their business loan calculator to check out how much borrowing is likely to cost.

We loved their easy to use website and their great customer reviews. Trustpilot reviewers comment on their excellent customer service and competitive interest rates and rate them 4.6 out of 5 stars.

We tested out their customer service for ourselves when our researcher phoned their helpline with a query. She was able to speak to a helpful customer service assistant straight away with no queuing time.

On the downside, Funding Circle isn’t suitable if you’re a new business as they only lend to businesses with 2 years’ trading history. You may also find them slow to respond if you contact them via their web form. We asked them a query using their web form and still hadn’t received a response after 48 hours.

Bottom Line

Funding Circle was set up to help small businesses raise affordable finance. Over the past 12 years they’ve built a loyal customer base, and it’s no secret why when you look at their impressive customer reviews. They've helped over 135,000 businesses borrow £15.2 billion. Many customers comment on their competitive interest rates, quick access to funds and great customer service. If you’re after a simple business loan then it’s definitely worth checking them out.

Key features of Funding Circle Business Loans

Types of business loan available from Funding Circle

Funding Circle currently offers a simple business loan. Here are some of the loan's key features.

Funding Circle’s loans in more detail

Simple business loan

You can borrow between £10,000 and £500,000 and interest rates vary between 2.9% to 12.1% per year. There’s a simple one-off fee when you apply and there are no early repayment charges.

Funding Circle has a useful business loan calculator so you can work out how much a loan is likely to cost you.

Funding Circle pride themselves on a quick application process and most lending decisions take under 5 hours. You’ll usually receive your funds within 24 hours of applying.

Your loan repayments will start after one month and will be spread over the term of loan. There’s no early repayment charge if you decide to repay the loan early.

Quick summary

This is a simple business loan where your repayment costs will be spread over the term of the loan. There are no early repayment charges and interest rates are very competitive,starting at 2.9%.

9 reasons to apply for a Funding Circle simple business loan

4 reasons not to apply for a Funding Circle simple business loan

Recovery Loan scheme

Note: recovery loans are no longer available but we are keeping this information up for historical purposes.

A Recovery Loan is part of a government-backed scheme that is open for new applications until June 2022. The loan scheme was set up by the Government to help businesses impacted by the Covid 19 pandemic. Your business can borrow between £25,000 to £350,000 (you may be able to borrow up to £2 million with another lender but lending is restricted to £350,000 with Funding Circle).

Interest rates vary between 9.1% to 12.1% per year and you can apply for borrowing for between 2 to 6 years. There is also a one-off completion fee when your loan is set up.

You can apply for a Funding Circle recovery loan if your business meets the following criteria:

Quick summary This is a government backed loan scheme that’s available for new applications until June 2022. It’s designed for businesses impacted by the Covid pandemic. You can borrow between £25,000 to £350,000 and will have to pay 9.1% to 12.1% interest.

4 reasons to apply for a Funding Circle Recovery Loan

4 reasons not to apply for a Funding Circle Recovery Loan

Other future loans

Funding Circle is planning to roll out two new loans in the future, a buy now pay later loan called FlexiPay and a Business Charge Card. They offer a waiting list for each type of loan if you want to sign up.

How to apply

If you want to apply for a Funding Circle business loan then it is a very simple application process that only takes a few minutes. You can use their eligible checker to see if you’re likely to be accepted. Here’s what you’ll need to provide once you apply:

Funding Circle business loan customer service reviews and ratings

Funding Circle business loan Ratings & Customer Reviews {#reviews}

How do existing customers rate Funding Circle business loans? To find out, we've searched through hundreds of online customer reviews.

Funding Circle business loan Trustpilot

Funding Circle has earned an impressive 4.6 stars out of 5 at Trustpilot for its business loans. 83% of reviewers give Funding Circle an “Excellent” 5 star rating and only 9% of reviewers give Funding Circle a “Bad” one-star review. This rating is based on over 13,000 reviews.

Many of the positive comments focus on how easy and quick it is to apply for a Funding Circle business loan. Customers also commented on the helpful customer service team and the competitive loan rates. Many reviewers said they would be coming back to Funding Circle in the future. Here are some of the recent reviews:

"Fast affordable funding made available with a straightforward application process. You get assigned an account manager that is there to guide you through the process and answer any questions you may have." May 2023

"The fastest loan available in the market for a genuine business. The interest rates is higher than Main Street lenders however for the people using the fund wisely is good. We didn’t have to fill out business plan and forms after forms. James was chasing me to get the things done even when I am in holiday. Took almost 3 days." June 2023

“We had a great experience with our application. Mohammad was extremely helpful and the application was decided quickly and funds transferred within a day. I would recommend Funding Circle to anyone.” Feb 2022

“Fantastic service, Daniel was very clear at each stage of the process. Impressive turnaround from start to finish … everything, including the funds into my bank account, was completed within 3 days.” Feb 2022

“I cannot praise Funding Circle highly enough, a professional and knowledgeable service. The account manager kept in touch when agreed during the application process and was on hand at other times to answer any questions we had. All of the information provided was clear and concise and the terms are highly competitive.” Feb 2022

“We needed a loan to enable the purchase of a pure electric van for our local garden design and landscaping work. Funding Circle [was] absolutely brilliant from start to finish. They made the process a pleasure and we actually got most of the money we needed within a couple of days. Very competitive interest rates too. Thoroughly recommended..” Feb 2022

How to contact Funding Circle

If you need to contact Funding Circle then they have a simple contact form on their website. They also have a support centre on their website that will give the answer to common queries.

Contact information for Funding Circle business loan