OakNorth Bank review 2026: £1m minimum, and no published price of any kind

Who OakNorth are

OakNorth Bank plc is company 08595042, incorporated on 3 July 2013 and registered at 57 Broadwick Street in Soho. Its footer reads: “OakNorth Bank plc is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority. (Financial Services Register number: 629564.)” It uses that phrase rather than FRN, and unlike the other banks we have reviewed in this group it carries no line anywhere saying whether its lending is regulated. Business lending to a company sits outside the consumer credit regime in any case, so the practical answer is that your protection is the facility agreement.

Deposits are a different matter and OakNorth is explicit: “Your eligible deposits with OakNorth are protected up to a total of £120,000 by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.” That limit rose from £85,000 on 1 December 2025. It protects savers. It does nothing at all for a borrower.

The scale is real. OakNorth's 2025 annual results, published 17 March 2026, report pre-tax profit of £223m, gross revenue of £605.9m, total facilities up 18% to £7.2bn and gross originations up 33% to £2.8bn. Cumulative lending passed £15.1bn over ten years, and the bank puts its cumulative principal losses across that decade at 0.045%. Adjusted return on equity was 22% and the cost-to-income ratio 26%.

One number reframes the whole proposition: 40% of 2025 gross originations came from the United States, a market OakNorth entered in 2023, and it has an agreed acquisition of Community Unity Bank in Michigan that was still awaiting regulatory approval at the March 2026 results. Calling OakNorth a UK challenger bank is becoming a description of where its licence is rather than where its lending goes.

What OakNorth actually lends

OakNorth organises its lending by sector rather than by product: care and senior living, childcare and education, real estate, hospitality, fund and speciality finance, then a catch-all that runs “from security to gardening to manufacturing and construction”. The structures on offer are term debt, revolving credit facilities, bridging loans and umbrella facilities that hold several loans under one agreement, with stretched and mezzanine hybrids arranged alongside third-party providers. Loans can amortise or sit interest-only with a lump sum at the end.

The one place OakNorth quotes a range is residential property investment, where it says “you can apply for finance from £1,000,000 up to £3,000,000 and you could receive loan terms tailored to your next residential property investment in just 5 minutes”, subject to the circumstances of each application. Terms in five minutes is an indication, not an offer and not money.

A stale-data warning that costs people time. A search result for the OakNorth business loans page still carries a title reading “Business Loans from £500,000”. The live page and FAQ both say £1 million as at 7 September 2026, so treat the £500,000 as an old index entry. In the same vein, the deals feed on the business loans and real estate pages has not been refreshed past October 2024, which makes the bank look quieter than its originations show it to be.

What OakNorth will not tell you

We read the business loans page, the real estate page, the residential property investment page, the FCA and FSCS legal pages and the FAQ. Not one of them carries a rate, a fee, a charge or a representative example. The whole of OakNorth's published position on cost is this: “The cost of your loan is based on what kind of borrower you are, or your risk profile, which depends on factors like credit history, industry sector and more. We focus on speed, flexibility and competitive terms over price.”

The list of things that are absent is longer than the list of things that are present. Whether pricing is fixed or linked to a base rate: not stated. Arrangement fee: not stated. Early repayment charge: not stated. Maximum loan to value on property: not stated. Minimum trading history or turnover as a number: not stated. Whether a sole trader or a special purpose vehicle can borrow: not stated. Whether a personal guarantee is taken: not stated on any page we could read.

Third-party sites fill those gaps, and we are not going to repeat them. One states a 70% maximum LTV on property investment loans and floating pricing linked to Bank Rate. Neither claim appears on an OakNorth page, so on this site it stays unverified. A number you cannot trace to the lender is worse than no number, because it gives a borrower confidence that has nothing behind it.

Compare that with what the same reader can find elsewhere in ten seconds. Shawbrook publishes a minimum 25% personal guarantee on commercial mortgages and buy-to-let. Redwood publishes 25% on commercial investment and 100% on owner-occupier lending. Allica publishes a guarantee requirement on hotels above 70% of vacant possession value. Cambridge & Counties says guarantees are requested but not always mandatory. OakNorth says nothing, so a borrower cannot know before applying whether directors are on the hook and for how much. For a £1m-plus facility, that is the single most important term in the document.

Who gets approved, and how the decision is made

OakNorth is open about being a manual underwriter and vague about the thresholds: “We're not an out-the-box lender so we don't have a one-size fits all approach. But, there are a few things we'll look at for certain types of loan, for example: How long you've been trading; Your annual turnover; Whether you're profitable or not; What your EBITDA is.” No figure is attached to any of those four. Given the £1 million floor, the effective filter is size rather than a published rule.

Two process points are worth knowing, and both are unusual enough to be verifiable selling points. For loans above a certain size, OakNorth says, “you'll even be invited to meet our Credit Committee”, so the people deciding will have met the people borrowing. And there is no banking condition: “Unlike many other high street banks, we won't make you transfer your business banking over to us.” Set that against Allica, where 0.50% of the published rate depends on routing half your turnover through an Allica account, and the trade becomes clear. OakNorth wants none of your banking and tells you none of its pricing.

On timing, OakNorth publishes a funding range and no decision service level. Its wording is “we typically fund our partners within weeks, rather than months” and “we can fund your business within days or weeks”. There is no promise of a decision in 24 hours or an offer in seven days, which is consistent with a bank that underwrites each case by hand and puts the larger ones in front of a committee.

Trustpilot shows 4.8 out of 5 from 20,971 reviews, 86% at five stars, read on 7 September 2026. Read that with care. OakNorth runs a large personal and business savings book, and a score built on tens of thousands of savers tells you about account opening and customer service, not about how a £4m facility gets underwritten.

What to ask OakNorth before you sign a term sheet

Because nothing is published, everything has to be asked, and asked before you commit to valuation and legal costs. The questions we put on an OakNorth case are these, in the order they usually matter.

• Is the margin fixed or floating, and if floating, over what reference rate and with what floor?
• What is the arrangement fee, is it payable on drawdown or on offer, and can it be added to the facility?
• What are the early repayment terms, including any non-utilisation or exit fee on a revolving facility?
• What personal guarantee is required, capped at what percentage of the facility, and from which directors?
• Is a debenture taken, and are there cross-guarantees from other group companies?
• What financial covenants apply, how often are they tested, and what happens on a breach?
• What is the maximum loan to value on this asset class, and is it against market value or vacant possession?
• Which fees are payable if the deal does not complete after the term sheet is signed?

None of those is an unreasonable question for a facility of a million pounds or more, and a bank that puts borrowers in front of its credit committee will answer them. The point is that with OakNorth you have to ask all of them, whereas with Shawbrook or Redwood roughly half are already on a public page.