Secure Trust Bank review 2026, development finance of £2m to £45m from a 1952 bank

Who Secure Trust Bank are

Secure Trust Bank PLC (00541132) has been on the Companies House register since 26 November 1954, and its about page traces the business back to 1952, which made 2022 its 70th year. The group runs from Yorke House on Arleston Way in Solihull and describes itself as serving over a million customers through a savings business, two consumer finance arms trading as V12 Retail Finance and V12 Vehicle Finance, the Moneyway brand, Debt Managers (Services) Ltd, and the two business divisions this page is about. Seven UK offices are listed in all.

The site footer states that the bank is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the PRA, and gives its registration number as 204550. The Register entry for that number can be read at register.fca.org.uk. A development loan or investment mortgage to a limited company or an SPV sits outside the regulated mortgage regime, which is the usual position for lending to a company.

A news release dated 24 March 2026 puts some scale on the business lending side. The two business finance divisions wrote over £700m of new business during 2025, net lending balances in Real Estate Finance rose 9.4%, and new business in Commercial Finance went from £105.8m in 2024 to £287.5m in 2025. Over three years the business finance book has grown 23%.

What Secure Trust Bank lends

Development finance is the core of the Real Estate Finance division. The product page sets the loan at £2m to £45m over a maximum of 36 months, drawn in stages as works progress, for three kinds of scheme. Residential schemes, whether new build or refurbishment and whether the units are sold or retained, go to 80% of cost and 65% of gross development value. Purpose built student accommodation goes to 75% of cost and 60% of GDV. Commercial development with a pre-let to an occupier in place goes to 85% of cost and 65% of GDV, and mixed use schemes are considered. On every type up to 60% of the land value can be advanced on day one.

Build to rent has its own page and its own numbers. The loan is again £2m to £45m, the term stretches to 60 months, gearing is 80% LTC and 65% LTGDV, and the borrower puts in at least 10% of the total cost. Houses, apartments and studios in low or high rise blocks all qualify as stock, as do permitted development conversions and refurbished units, and the bank asks for an agreement with an established build to rent operator on the scheme.

Investment property loans of £2m to £45m run for up to 5 years at a maximum of 70% LTV on freehold or long leasehold residential property. The page lists private rented sector homes, HMOs, apartment blocks, purpose built student accommodation and property with planning permission for student use, funded in single or multiple tranches on an interest-only or repayment structure, for stock that will be let or improved and sold. The bridging page covers £2m to £20m over 3 to 24 months for three purposes: land banking with residential planning consent at up to 60% of residual land value, development exit at up to 70% of market value with rolled interest inside that figure, and stabilising a completed investment before it fully performs. Rolled or serviced structures are both offered.

Away from property, STB Commercial Finance in Manchester provides asset based lending of £5m to £50m built from invoice finance, stock and inventory finance, plant, machinery and vehicle funding and commercial loans against property. The page names refinancing, growth, private equity backed acquisitions, restructuring, management buyouts and buy-ins, cash out for investors and mergers as the purposes it serves, and the division is a member of UK Finance IFABL.

Who Secure Trust Bank lends to

The real estate landing page addresses small and medium sized developers and investors, family offices, PLCs, property funds and special purpose vehicles, and welcomes brokers as introducers. Relevant experience is asked for on every property product, so the underwriters expect to see a track record in schemes of the kind being funded. The build to rent page goes further and accepts individuals, partnerships and UK corporate borrowing entities provided the ultimate owners are UK based.

Every property page carries the same geographic line, mainland UK, so a site in Scotland or Wales is inside the footprint on the same basis as one in the South East. The Reading office is where the head of relationship management sits, and the bridging desk has its own head and its own broker portal. A scheme sized below the £2m development minimum, or an investment purchase under £2m, belongs with one of the smaller-ticket lenders on our development finance panel rather than here.

Property-secured finance arranged through us is for UK limited companies and LLPs. Secure Trust Bank takes individuals and partnerships on its build to rent product under its own criteria, and an unincorporated borrower would reach it through a broker whose permissions cover that route.

How an application runs

The development, bridging and build to rent pages each publish the same six steps. A member of the team visits the site to discuss the scheme. Heads of terms follow, issued before credit has seen the case. The borrower signs and returns them. The case then goes to credit for submission and approval, solicitors and valuers carry out their reviews, and the loan draws down, in the case of a development against monitoring surveyor reports as each stage of the works completes. The investment loans page describes the same shape in fewer words, from a discovery discussion through commitment to drawdown.

Security on a build to rent facility, the one page that lists it, is a first legal charge over the property, a debenture over the borrower, collateral warranties, an assignment of the build contract and personal or corporate guarantees. A relationship director handles the account once it is live, and existing borrowers are pointed to that person for their next scheme.

When the case comes through us, a named case handler assembles the appraisal, the planning position, the build cost schedule and the borrower's track record once, and that pack goes to Secure Trust Bank and the other development lenders on the panel together. We arrange the facility and the bank reads the scheme and makes its own decision. Enquiring does not affect your credit score.

Secure Trust Bank on our panel

At September 2026 our catalogue held 2 live Secure Trust Bank development finance products with loan sizes of £1m through to £45m and terms of 1 month through to 2 years. The lower end of that size span sits under the £2m the product page prints, because the panel entry describes the products as our catalogue records them at that date rather than the bank's own current floor, and panel composition changes from one pull to the next.

For context, at September 2026 we counted 27 lender brands on the panel with a live development product that allows for planning gain, 16 that consider a first-time developer and 29 that fund development on Scottish sites. Those are counts of brands with at least one live product against each criterion, not a statement of Secure Trust Bank's own policy, which asks for relevant experience on every property product.