Atom bank review 2026, commercial mortgages of £100,000 to £10m through brokers

Who Atom bank are

Atom Bank PLC (08632552) was incorporated at Companies House on 31 July 2013 as Crossco (1337) Limited and took the Atom Bank name on 13 August 2015. Its about page dates the bank itself to 2014 and calls it the UK's first app-based bank, run from The Pattern Shop on Sussex Street in Newcastle upon Tyne by a team of more than 470 people. The business lending page records that the bank received £10m from the Banking Competition Remedies fund to build its SME lending, and the commercial intermediaries page says it has been using technology and automation to get SMEs access to commercial property finance since 2016.

The site footer states that Atom bank plc is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the PRA, Financial Services Register number 661960. On 21 September 2026 the FCA Register returned Atom Bank PLC against that number with a status of Authorised since 23 June 2015, and the full entry is at register.fca.org.uk. A commercial mortgage to a limited company is not a regulated mortgage contract, so the permissions matter most where a sole trader or partnership borrows.

What Atom bank lends

Two named products sit on the intermediaries page, the Commercial Owner-Occupied Mortgage and the Commercial Investment Mortgage, both from £100,000 to £10,000,000 at up to 75% LTV with a choice of fixed or variable structure. The business loans page adds that Atom currently offers secured lending only, secured on property or premises, and that the money can go towards growing the business, hiring staff, moving or expanding premises, upgrading equipment or consolidating business debt. Growth Guarantee Scheme loans, launched in July 2024, start at £250,000.

The lending criteria page is where the shape of a deal is set. A commitment term runs from 2 to 10 years, with the 10-year commitment available on variable structures only, a maximum fixed commitment of 7 years and 6 years on Growth Guarantee Scheme lending. Amortisation is a minimum of 2 years and a maximum of 25 years on commercial property or 35 years on residential investment property, and interest-only periods are available on both investment and owner-occupied cases for up to 5 years. Loans to £5m go to 75% LTV subject to credit quality, and loans of £5m to £10m go to 70%. The single-borrower limit is £10m in most circumstances, with no limit on what a customer holds with other lenders.

Security can be commercial offices, warehouses, factories, industrial units, agricultural property, retail units, purpose-built student accommodation, residential and commercial investment property, food and accommodation led public houses, restaurants, hotels, care homes, children's day nurseries, specialist care and learning disability homes, and children's homes. That reads as a bank comfortable in the trading-business end of commercial mortgages, the pub, hotel and care home cases that need an underwriter to read a set of accounts, as much as in the investment end.

Who Atom bank lends to

Limited companies and public limited companies, limited liability partnerships, partnerships and sole traders are the four structures the criteria page accepts. Trusts, pension schemes, charities and clubs or associations sit outside the criteria. A business trading for under 2 years is considered where the loan is part of an existing Atom customer's expansion, and the key individuals must be over 18 and under 80 at the end of the repayment profile on a trading business, or under 85 on an investment case.

Security must be in the UK, with the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man outside that footprint. The sector list the criteria page keeps outside its lending includes nightclubs, mining, fuel filling stations, gambling businesses and building or development finance, so a ground-up scheme belongs with a development lender rather than here. The intermediaries page describes flexible criteria, dedicated underwriters and a team that looks at the merits of each application individually, which in practice means a case is read rather than scored.

Property-secured finance arranged through us is for UK limited companies and LLPs. Atom accepts sole traders and partnerships on its own criteria, so an unincorporated business reaches the bank through a broker working under a different permission set from ours.

How an application runs

The bank publishes its process in a post on the intermediaries site. A broker uses the quick quote tool and talks to a business development manager before applying, then submits the case with its documents through the portal. The intermediary support team reviews a new case the same day, a lending specialist runs the searches and issues an agreement in principle, and the broker confirms the client accepts it before underwriting starts. Fully packaged cases receive that agreement in principle within an average of one working day.

Underwriting assesses the case against lending policy, and a loan above £2m goes to committee and board for approval. Once approved, the loan documents are prepared and checked by a manager and sent securely, the client signs and returns the offer within 14 days, and only then is the valuation instructed through the bank's panel of VAS or Method and solicitors appointed. The valuation report goes back to underwriting before legals finish and funds are released. The post gives an average of around 14 working days from application to offer, including the time clients take to respond.

Through us the accounts, the security and the purpose go to Atom and to the rest of the panel in one package, put together by a named case handler. We arrange the mortgage; the bank reads the case and makes its own decision. Enquiring does not affect your credit score.

Our panel and Atom bank

At September 2026 our catalogue held 24 live Atom bank commercial mortgage products sized £100,000 to £20m, each with a 7 years commitment. That span runs past the £10m single-loan figure the bank prints because it describes the products on our panel at that date rather than what one borrower can take, and panel composition changes.

Across the panel at September 2026 we counted 36 lender brands with a live commercial mortgage for offices, 25 for care homes, 20 for pubs and 32 lending on Scottish security. Atom's property list puts it in all four. Those are counts of brands with at least one live product, not a description of the bank's own criteria.