Capital On Tap closing all sole trader accounts

[MattH]

Just received via email with an SMS to accompany.

On 21 November 2022, your Capital on Tap card will stop working and you will have no further access to new funding from that point.

This is a decision we’ve made in relation to all UK sole traders and unincorporated partnerships and has no bearing on the individual standing of your account with us.

After much consideration, we’ve taken the difficult decision to stop lending to sole traders and unincorporated partnerships.

Sole traders and unincorporated partnerships account for just 1% of our current UK business and so to better serve the 99% of our remaining customers we have decided to focus exclusively on limited companies going forward.

If you plan to convert your business to a limited company, please let us know and we can look to transfer your current balance to a new account.

[Rob]

Interesting, hadn’t heard this. Thanks.

[The Savage Squirrel]

Same here. Great shame. “The credit card built for small businesses” it says just to the right of this box in the HfP site advert. Not true as it turns out, given that sole proprietorship is the commonest form of small business by a significant margin.

Given they’ve rejected all sole trader applicants for years, the 1% figure is hardly representative of demand.

Still, @Rob this would be an excellent time to do an article on alternatives….

[Lady London]

What’s the “real reason”? Have they just decided that the risk of such customers is just too high? Are they basically evaluating the risk as personal rather than business risk?

[JDB]

Lady London wrote:

What’s the “real reason”? Have they just decided that the risk of such customers is just too high? Are they basically evaluating the risk as personal rather than business risk?

It’s the same reason as other stuff being complained about on here today re Curve etc. – a minority of people abusing the system, so the genuine sole traders using the card normally now lose out.

[Peter K]

JDB wrote:

Lady London wrote:

What’s the “real reason”? Have they just decided that the risk of such customers is just too high? Are they basically evaluating the risk as personal rather than business risk?

It’s the same reason as other stuff being complained about on here today re Curve etc. – a minority of people abusing the system, so the genuine sole traders using the card normally now lose out.

I genuinely doubt that. They are small enough that they can shut down individual sole traders of they wanted to. For example, earlier this week I had an individual email sent to me to check my business status etc – so they can shut me down as a sole trader I now know (I also had the email).

They could easily have done a KYC check if they wanted to on suspicious accounts.

[memesweeper]

Lady London wrote:

What’s the “real reason”? Have they just decided that the risk of such customers is just too high? Are they basically evaluating the risk as personal rather than business risk?

Wild guess here — there’s a cost in establishing if an individual is a sole trader with a “real” business, and if their spend is legitimate business spend. If that cost is too high, then it’s not worth having sole traders, any sole traders, on the books. The fact you can do a source of funds check doesn’t make it worthwhile use of anyone’s time.

It’s easier to handle Ltds, and easier still if they are large enough to warrant a VAT registration. Plenty of companies only deal with Ltds, or VAT registered companies, for example, as suppliers, for trade accounts or for free trials.

@Rob has mentioned COT are a super-lean organisation compared to traditional finance houses. I guess they want to stay that way.

[Lady London]

Makes sense @memesweeper. And very sensible of CoT to want to stay focused.

Hey Rob I guess HfP is an inc?