Using an asset finance broker: what changes is which lenders will touch your asset

Every other kind of business borrowing turns on your figures. Asset finance turns on your figures and on one extra question that catches people out: if this deal fails, is the lender willing to end up owning this particular thing and selling it on. A broker is worth using here in proportion to how awkwardly your purchase answers that question. CapExpand is a broker with 38 asset finance lenders on a panel of 200+, and the counts below are from our own platform extract rather than a brochure.

What a broker changes in asset finance

Not the price, mostly. Asset finance pricing is driven by the asset class, the term and your covenant, and a broker does not talk an underwriter out of its risk model. What a broker changes is the order you approach people in, and in this product that is worth more than it sounds, because the wrong first lender costs a fortnight of document-chasing and ends in a decline that tells you nothing you could not have been told on day one.

The other thing it changes is the shape of the deal. Whether you take hire purchase or a lease, how much deposit goes in, whether the VAT is deferred and what happens to the asset at the end are all negotiable in a way the headline rate is not. Our asset finance guide covers those mechanics in full.

The panel, counted by asset class

This is the table nobody publishes, and it is the honest version of what “we have a large panel” means for your purchase. Counts are distinct lender brands on our panel willing to consider that class, from the September 2026 platform extract. They describe appetite, not approval: every lender still underwrites your business separately.

The pattern behind the numbers is resale. A digger has a deep second-hand market, a known auction price and a serial number, so a lender can model recovery. A gym fit-out has none of those, and a scaffolding yard sits somewhere between the two because the kit is valuable but the market for it is small and regional. That is why soft assets attract larger deposits and shorter terms rather than simply higher rates.

The four things that shrink the list

In roughly the order they cause trouble. First, buying from a private seller: 10 lenders will do it, because without a dealer invoice the lender has no recourse and no clean title trail. Second, an older asset, where 15 lenders will consider machinery past the usual age bands, usually with an inspection. Third, geography: 13 of our asset finance lenders cover Northern Ireland against 33 for Scotland. Fourth, the accounts, where 19 lenders will look at a loss-making business and 14 at business adverse credit.

Each of those on its own is workable. Two together is where cases stall, and it is the reason to say all four out loud at the first conversation rather than discovering them in sequence. A broker who asks about the seller and the asset age before asking about your turnover is working the right order.

What it costs you

Nothing, in the ordinary case. The lender pays us a commission when a deal completes and that commission does not change the rate you are quoted. Client-fee models exist elsewhere in the market, mostly on large-ticket or unusual assets, and they are legitimate where they are disclosed before you commit. The test is whether a firm will tell you who pays it, in one sentence, without shifting. We work with UK limited companies, LLPs, sole traders and partnerships.

How a case runs

You tell us the asset, the seller, the price and roughly what the accounts look like. We come back with which lenders on the panel cover that class and what each will want to see, before anything is submitted. You choose where it goes. The lender underwrites and makes the decision, we do not, and a decision on a straightforward hard asset commonly comes back in a day or two rather than a week.

Have the supplier invoice or proforma, the asset details including age and serial or registration number, and your last filed accounts to hand. On a private purchase, add the seller's details and proof of ownership, since that is the document that holds cases up most often.

Sources and method

The asset-class counts above are ours, from the platform extract dated in the text. Nobody else publishes them, so there is nothing external to cite for those. What can be checked externally is the market context and the standing of any firm involved, and that is what these are for.

1. Finance & Leasing Association, asset finance statistics
2. FCA Register: check a firm, its permissions and its principal
3. Companies House: check the company behind a trading name
4. British Business Bank, business guidance on asset finance
5. NACFB, commercial finance broker standards