Merchant Cash Advance for Retail Businesses

A merchant cash advance is not a loan in the conventional sense. The lender buys a portion of your future card revenue at a discount. You take a lump sum today and repay it via an agreed percentage split of your daily card settlements, typically 10 to 25 percent, until the total repayable amount is cleared.\n\nFor retail, this mechanic fits the trading rhythm better than most products. Stock up for Christmas, take the advance in October, and the repayments run faster through December when the tills are busy, then ease off in January when they are not. There is no fixed direct debit wiping your account on a set date regardless of how the month has gone.\n\nThe cost sits in the factor rate, usually 1.15 to 1.50. Borrow £50,000 at 1.30 and you repay £65,000. There is no APR the way you would see it on a bank loan, because the term floats with your sales volume, so a standard rate comparison does not map cleanly. We are transparent about that when we place these deals. The lender who says yes to this facility is usually a specialist MCA provider or a fintech with direct access to your card processor data, not a high street bank.\n\nMost underwriters want to see at least four to six months of card terminal or payment gateway history, and they read consistency as closely as volume. A retailer doing £30,000 a month reliably will often see a sharper offer than one doing £60,000 in peaks and £8,000 in the slow months. We are a broker, so we take that trading profile to the providers most likely to fund it rather than sending you to a single desk.