Non-bank lenders are moving away from using credit score as a pass/fail gate. Settlement rates have grown fastest for bruised credit (up 18.7%), and good-credit businesses now settle at rates very good credit did a year ago. If you were declined on your score alone recently, it's worth checking again.
If a lender knocked you back in the last year or two because of your credit score, it's worth asking whether that decision would still hold today. Increasingly, it wouldn't.
We place a high volume of deals across our panel of 90+ lenders every year, which gives us a view most business owners never get to see: not just what one lender's policy says on paper, but what actually happens to a deal with a bruised score once it's in front of the market.
And the pattern is unambiguous. Credit score is losing its grip as the make-or-break number, and businesses that used to get filtered out first are now the ones seeing the biggest gains.
The data: Settlement rates for bruised credit are climbing fastest
We tracked year-on-year settlement rate growth across credit bands. Every band grew, but the growth is stacked at the bottom:
- Below-average credit (459 or lower): up 18.7%
- Average credit (460–650): up 6.8%
- Good credit (650–720): up 4.7%
That's not lenders "loosening up" a little across the board; it looks like a real re-rating of what a bruised score means to them.
Here's the number that matters most for the 'good' range: that band is now settling at close to the rate the very good band settled at 12 months ago. The gap between "good" and "very good" credit is closing, and a score that used to sit a tier behind is now clearing at close to the same rate the top tier did a year ago.
Why: Your cash flow now matters more than your history
A credit score is a photo from the past. It can reflect a bad quarter, a late payment, a rough stretch two or three years ago that has nothing to do with how the business is trading today.
Lenders are increasingly weighing that photo against live footage instead: recent cash flow, current trading trajectory, industry conditions, and asset backing.
Your score still matters, and it's still part of how a lender reads the application. What's changed is that it's no longer the single number that decides the outcome on its own. That doesn't guarantee a yes, but it means a bruised score is no longer an automatic no.
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If you've been declined, or you've stopped applying
Plenty of directors carry an old assumption: "My score's not great, so there's no point." That assumption is getting more expensive by the year.
If your business has stabilised — trading is consistent, revenue is up, the rough patch is behind you — the data suggests a score that would have been a hard no a year or two ago is now clearing at a much better rate.
Worth checking before you rule yourself out:
- Is recent cash flow strong and consistent?
- Has trading recovered since whatever caused the dip?
- Is there enough asset backing to support the facility?
- Does your industry's outlook support repayment?
If most of those are a yes, your credit score is carrying less weight than you probably think.
Ask again
The market has already re-priced what a bruised credit score is worth. If you were declined on your score alone in the past year, or you've been holding off applying because of an old assumption, that's worth revisiting now.
Don't let a credit score hold your business back. Speak to a specialist who looks at the full picture.
References:
Based on analysis of approximately 10,000 commercial settlements across FY26, conducted by Valiant.
