Business loans made simple

If you think a commercial mortgage is the right loan for your business, there are a few steps you will need to go through to submit your application, including:

• Preparing any paperwork and accounts
• Planning how much you need to borrow and why
• Making sure your budget can accommodate the repayments
• Speaking to a broker
• Deciding which business loan is right for you
• Submitting your application
• Waiting for a decision from the lender
• Completing the legal process
• Drawing down the loan for your business

If you want to apply for a business loan with Atom, there’s a few steps to follow to start the process and find the right product.

1. Speak to a broker — they’ll listen to your needs and help you decide if a business loan with Atom is right for you, and, if yes, what type of product would be best.
2. Your broker submits an application — your broker will submit an application for your chosen product on your behalf.
3. ID and verification — we carry out an ID check on you and your business.
4. We assess your application — we review the documentation and details of your case that your broker has sent over.
5. We make a decision on your loan — we’ll let you know the outcome of your application. If we decline, we’ll always try and explain why.

We appreciate that applying for a business loan with a poor credit history can often be a challenge. Our underwriters assess each application on its own individual merits rather than applying a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach. If we decline your application, we’ll always try to tell you why we’ve made our decision.

If you’re a new customer, you’ll need to work with a broker to access our commercial finance products. This means that they will help you decide if a loan with us is right for you and your circumstances.

The turnaround time for your application can depend on a few factors, such as how quickly your broker applies on your behalf, whether your application contains the correct information first time around and how many applications we are processing at the time of receipt.

However, it is worth noting that we’ve made our application process as smooth and as streamlined as possible to ensure we can reach a decision as quickly as we can. What’s more, we are always reviewing and improving the process to make things even easier.

It is worth noting that we currently only offer secured loans, which typically take longer to process than an unsecured loan. This is due to the evaluation and underwriting process.

You can use a business loan for many purposes in your business, such as:

• Growing your business
• Hiring new staff
• Moving or expanding your premises
• Upgrading your equipment
• Consolidating business debt

Each bank has their own criteria that they use to make a decision on commercial mortgage applications, and your application will be assessed against them.

Your application will be reviewed by an underwriter, who is responsible for deciding whether providing a loan to your business is viable and affordable based on the information available. They will look at areas like your profit and cashflow, the security available, purpose of the loan and your business credit. They will also determine what the loan terms will be should they make you an offer.