Trade finance in Nottingham
Trade finance funds the gap between paying an overseas supplier and being paid by your customer. A lender settles with your supplier against agreed documents and you repay once your buyer pays. CoreFi arranges it for Nottingham businesses, principally limited companies importing stock or components. Terms depend on the goods, the counterparties and the trading history.
Nottingham has a long history of importing to sell on, from the textile trade that built the Lace Market to the consumer goods and pharmaceutical supply chains that run through the city now. Distributors along the M1 corridor and around the Boots enterprise zone hold stock they have paid for months before it turns into revenue, and that is precisely the gap trade finance covers.
CoreFi is a commercial finance broker. We arrange trade finance for Nottingham businesses, principally limited companies, across import finance, letters of credit and supply chain facilities. We package the case, go to lenders whose appetite fits the goods and the counterparties, and manage it through to drawdown.
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Tell us what you need
Tell us what you import, who from, who you sell to and on what payment terms. It costs nothing to start and there is no obligation.
- 2
We match you with suitable lenders
We assess your situation against our whole-of-market panel and identify the lenders whose criteria actually fit, rather than applying everywhere.
- 3
We package and submit
We prepare the case with the documents the lender will ask for and put it in front of the lenders most likely to fund it.
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Offer and drawdown
The lender issues terms and, on acceptance, releases the facility. We manage the process through to completion.
Where the money gets stuck
An importer pays a supplier 30 to 120 days before goods land, pays duty and VAT the moment they clear customs, then holds stock until a retailer or trade customer buys and eventually pays on terms. For a Nottingham distributor bringing containers in through Felixstowe or Immingham that can be four months of cash committed before any comes back.
Seasonality makes it sharper. Ordering for a peak means the largest outlay falls furthest from the revenue, and an overdraft sized for the quiet months will not stretch to it. Trade finance is sized to the transaction rather than to last year's average balance.
What the facility looks like
The lender pays your supplier against agreed documents and you repay when your customer settles, with the goods as primary security. A letter of credit is the related instrument where the supplier wants a guarantee of payment before shipping, which is common when a Nottingham buyer opens an account with a new overseas manufacturer.
Where the same goods are sold on credit terms, pairing trade finance with invoice finance covers the whole cycle rather than half of it. That combination is usually what makes the numbers work for a distributor whose customers are themselves large and slow to pay.
What makes a case fundable
Lenders underwrite the trade, not just the borrower. They want goods with a genuine resale market, counterparties they can verify, and evidence the cycle has completed before. Branded consumer goods and standard components are the easy end; perishables, heavily seasonal one-offs and anything with a single possible buyer are the hard end.
A clean, honest account of your supplier and customer relationships at the outset does more for the outcome than a polished set of accounts. Where we think the deal is really a stock funding or working capital problem rather than a trade cycle problem, we will tell you, because the wrong product here is expensive.
Frequently asked questions
Do you cover all of Nottingham and the county?
Yes. We work with businesses across Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, from the city centre and the Lace Market out to the M1 corridor, Beeston and Mansfield. The lenders we match you to will confirm whether they fund your specific sector and trade routes.
Do you lend the money yourselves?
No. CoreFi is a commercial finance broker, not a lender. We arrange the facility with lenders on our panel and are paid a commission by the lender on completion. If we think trade finance is the wrong product for your situation we will say so.
Do I need to be importing already?
Most lenders want to see a trading history with the supplier and the buyer, typically two or more years of accounts showing international trade. A first order to a brand new supplier is the hardest case to fund, because the lender is underwriting a relationship that has no track record.
Is trade finance cheaper than an unsecured loan?
For the purchase-to-payment cycle on repeat orders it usually is, because the facility is secured against the goods rather than against the business generally. An unsecured loan is better for costs outside that cycle. The two are not competing and some clients hold both.
Get matched with lenders for your Nottingham business
Tell us what your business needs and we will match you with lenders whose criteria fit. No obligation, no cost to start the conversation, and a straight answer about what is realistic for your situation.
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