Cambridge & Counties Bank review 2026: every criterion in public, and not one rate

Who owns Cambridge & Counties, and why that shows

Cambridge & Counties Bank Ltd is company 07972522, incorporated on 1 March 2012 and run from Charnwood Court in Leicester rather than from Cambridge. Its shareholders are Trinity Hall, a college of the University of Cambridge, and Cambridgeshire County Council as administering authority of the Cambridgeshire Local Government Pension Fund. No private equity, no listing, no venture capital. That ownership explains a lot about how the bank behaves: it is not being run towards an exit, and its published growth targets are modest next to a Shawbrook or an OakNorth.

The footer is precise and slightly old-fashioned in its wording: the bank is authorised by the PRA and regulated by the FCA and PRA “under firm registration number 579415”, its savings accounts are regulated, and then the scoping line, “Our property finance and asset finance are not regulated.” The same sentence appears in the product guides. That is the correct position for commercial lending and it is stated more plainly here than on most bank sites.

On deposits, the bank gives the cleanest account of the 2025 change we found anywhere. A customer explainer dated 27 November 2025 says: “The current FSCS deposit protection limit on eligible deposits is £85,000. From 1st December 2025 the limit will rise from £85,000 to £120,000.” The homepage now states £120,000 flatly. As with every bank, that protects savers and does nothing for borrowers.

The 2025 results, published on 28 April 2026, show gross new lending of £560m, up almost 50% on the £376m of 2024 and the highest in the bank's history. Total loans and advances rose 20% to almost £1.5bn, real estate finance balances more than 15% to £1.21bn and asset finance 45% to £241m. Deposits reached £1.63bn, pre-tax profit was £39.7m, up 11%, and return on tangible equity 13.9%. The number that stands out is the cost of risk, which fell from 42 basis points in 2024 to minus 15 basis points in 2025, the lowest since the bank opened in 2012. A negative cost of risk means provisions were released rather than taken. Headcount is 248 and a Manchester office opened during the year. It is also a certified B Corp, with a published 2024 impact assessment score of 92.8.

What Cambridge & Counties lends, and on what terms

Commercial investment is the core book. Lending goes to 70% of open market value, from £150,000 in England and Wales or £500,000 in Scotland, up to £15m of borrowings per customer with no restriction on the number of properties. Terms run from 12 months to 25 years, on a variable rate across the whole range or a 3 or 5-year fixed. Security is a first legal charge on a property in England, Scotland or Wales. The bank lends to corporate borrowers registered in the UK or Crown dependencies, and to individuals who are UK resident.

Owner occupier lending goes higher against the right measure: up to 75% of vacant possession value, or “up to the lower of 70% mv1 or 85% mv3” on a trading valuation basis, from £250,000 in England and Wales. Opco and propco structures are acceptable, which matters for a trading business that holds its premises in a separate company. The trading history bar is low by the standards of this group: “all borrowers must have been trading for a minimum of 12 months”, and “businesses with only 12 months trading considered”. Allica and Redwood both want two or three years for the equivalent product.

Buy-to-let runs to 75% of open market value from £150,000, over 12 months to 30 years, with 3 and 5-year fixed rates depending on the product, for limited companies, partnerships, LLPs or individuals. Investment and buy-to-let are both restricted to “experienced property investors”, so a first purchase does not fit either.

Bridging was refreshed during 2026, with a current guide dated 29 May 2026 and a bridge-to-term option now on the page. Loans are £500,000 to £5m over 1 to 24 months, up to 80% of vacant possession value on residential including speculative cases, 70% on commercial, and mixed-use split by the majority use. Interest can roll up within the LTV limits. The bank is explicit that pricing is not on the page: “All enquiries are assessed on a case-by-case basis by the Head of Bridging and Credit Underwriting to determine leverage and pricing.”

Asset finance sits alongside, on hire purchase and finance lease across agriculture, construction, machinery and materials handling and commercial vehicles, plus a specialist line in classic, vintage, racing and supercars. That last book grew by a record £46m in 2025. A deposit-taking bank funding a Cambridgeshire pension fund on one side and a classic car on the other is an unusual combination, and it is a real one.

The price is not on the page, and it is not in the guides either

We went looking properly for this rather than skimming the website. The commercial investment product guide dated June 2026 and the commercial owner occupier guide dated August 2026 both carry key features, the interest rate options available and full lending criteria. Neither carries an interest rate, an arrangement fee percentage, an early repayment charge or a representative example. The public product pages carry none either. Both guides are current documents from 2026, so this is a deliberate policy rather than a page that went stale.

That leaves a real gap for anyone comparing. Fixed rates are offered over 3 and 5 years and a variable rate is offered across the full term, but whether that variable rate tracks the Bank of England Bank Rate or an internal Cambridge & Counties reference rate, and whether any floor applies, is not published. We are not going to guess. Shawbrook runs its own reference rate with a 0.75% floor and prints the entire history. Redwood runs its own too and publishes the level and the reversion margins. Allica prices over the Bank of England rate and prints every margin. Cambridge & Counties names neither the reference rate nor the margin, which makes it the only bank in this group where a variable-rate borrower cannot work out how the rate will move.

Two cost points are published and both are borrower-friendly. There is “no valuation fee payable until loan is approved” across the property products, which saves a few hundred pounds on a case that fails at credit rather than at valuation. And gifted deposits are permitted between family members. Sector inclusion and exclusion lists for commercial property are not published, and neither is a position on newly incorporated special purpose vehicles beyond the requirement that corporate borrowers be registered in the UK or a Crown dependency.

The guarantee wording, in full

Across commercial investment, owner occupier and buy-to-let the wording is identical: “Personal guarantees requested from business owners/directors but are not always mandatory.” Nine words that put more discretion in the underwriter's hands than anything else in this group publishes.

Set against the alternatives, the spread is wide enough to change which lender fits a given director best. Shawbrook publishes a minimum of 25% of the loan on both commercial mortgages and buy-to-let. Redwood publishes 25% on commercial investment and 100% on commercial owner-occupier or operating company lending. Allica takes a guarantee on hotels for any amount above 70% of vacant possession value, and treats guarantees case by case elsewhere. OakNorth publishes nothing at all. Cambridge & Counties says it asks and may not insist.

Our reading of that, and it is a reading rather than a promise: “not always mandatory” is a lever on a strong case with low leverage and a solid covenant, and it is nothing at all on a marginal one. A business owner buying premises at 70% of vacant possession value with 12 months of trading behind them can expect to sign. The difference from Redwood is still material, because Redwood publishes 100% on that same product and Cambridge & Counties leaves the level unstated.

Who gets approved

The dividing line is experience on the investment side and trading history on the occupier side. Commercial investment and buy-to-let are “only available to experienced property investors”, so a first-time landlord or a first commercial purchase does not fit however good the asset looks. Owner occupier flips that: 12 months of trading is enough, and the bank says so twice on the same page, which reads like a deliberate signal to businesses that have just come out of their first year.

Structures are accommodating. Limited companies, partnerships, LLPs, individuals in personal name, and opco/propco arrangements on owner occupier lending are all named as acceptable. Corporate borrowers must be registered in the UK or a Crown dependency, and an individual borrowing in personal name must be a UK resident. There is a secured pension lending product for SIPP and SSAS purchases, and VAT loans for the VAT element of a commercial purchase, which is the kind of adjacent product that saves a deal falling over in the fortnight before completion.

No decision service level and no time-to-funds figure appear anywhere on the site. Nor does a sector exclusion list. On the bridging book the bank states that leverage and pricing are set case by case by the head of bridging and credit underwriting, and that “product/rates can be removed at any time”. This is a manual bank and it says so by omission.

Trustpilot shows 4.5 out of 5 from 51 reviews, 23 of them in the last 12 months, read on 7 September 2026. Fifty-one reviews is not a sample. Cambridge & Counties only launched its Trustpilot profile recently, so the low count reflects when it started asking, not how much business it writes, and the score should not be lined up next to the tens of thousands of reviews at OakNorth or Shawbrook as though the two were comparable.