Funding Circle plc: Full Year 2025 Results
05.03.2026 - 08:00:06 | dgap.de| Funding Circle Holdings plc (FCH) 05-March-2026 / 07:00 GMT/BST Funding Circle Holdings plc Full Year 2025 Results FY 2026 REVENUE GUIDANCE ACHIEVED A YEAR EARLY UPGRADED FY 2026 GUIDANCE & ATTRACTIVE NEW MEDIUM-TERM TARGETS Funding Circle Holdings plc (“Funding Circle” or the “Group”) today announces results for the twelve months ended 31 December 2025. Lisa Jacobs, Funding Circle CEO, commented: "We delivered a standout performance in 2025, exceeding our expectations and hitting our 2026 revenue guidance a year early, and we supported more SMEs than ever before. Strong growth in the credit we extended led to revenue growth of 28% to £204m and profit before tax increasing to £20m, demonstrating the strong operating leverage and profitability of our platform. “We’ve successfully executed against our strategy to deepen our engagement with SMEs and expand our multi-product offering, enabling us to meet more of our customers’ needs. We now interact with a customer once every 38 seconds, putting us at the heart of their businesses as a trusted financial partner. Our 15 years of proprietary data and technology expertise are the foundation of our competitive advantage, allowing us to deliver a superior customer experience. “Looking ahead, we see a significant opportunity to further grow our share of the SME finance market. Our confidence in the strength and scalability of our platform is reflected in the attractive new medium-term targets we are setting today. By becoming a more meaningful partner to our customers, we aim to not only grow our business but to support the next phase of growth across the UK’s SME economy."
Our strategic priorities are focused on customer-led profitable growth: Get to yes: Get the right product to the right business, through credit excellence and product improvements. Expand our audience: Target new segments; deepen and expand our distribution channels. Scale our products: Capitalise on the large market opportunity by focusing on refining and scaling our products to drive growth and margin expansion. Build a seamless lifetime customer experience: Deliver an exceptional experience throughout our customers’ lifetime journey with our expanded product set, as their trusted financial partner. These will deliver customer-led top-line growth and increased profit within our current product set over the coming years, while enabling the next phase of longer-term growth with continued investment in our product and technology capabilities. We are building powerful insights into our customers that provide a strong platform for growth beyond our existing product set as we become our customers’ trusted financial partner. Guidance We have upgraded our FY26 guidance having achieved our previous revenue target a year early. We are also establishing new medium-term targets through to FY29:
Management will host a presentation and conference call for institutional investors and analysts at 9:30am UK time (GMT), on Thursday 5 March 2026. To watch and listen to the webcast, with the opportunity to submit written questions, please use this link to register and gain access to the event. For conference call access, please dial +44 33 0551 0200 or +1 786 697 3501 Quote ‘Funding Circle FY25’ when prompted by the operator. An on-demand replay and transcript will also be available on the Funding Circle website following the presentation. For further details: Funding Circle Holdings plc ir@fundingcircle.com press@fundingcircle.com Lisa Jacobs, Chief Executive Officer Tony Nicol, Chief Financial Officer Headland Consultancy Stephen Malthouse and Jack Gault (+44 20 3805 4822) Forward looking statements and other important information: This document contains forward looking statements, which are statements that are not historical facts and that reflect Funding Circle’s beliefs and expectations with respect to future events and financial and operational performance. These forward looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions, estimates and other factors, which may be beyond the control of Funding Circle and which may cause actual results or performance to differ materially from those expressed or implied from such forward looking statements. Nothing contained within this document is or should be relied upon as a warranty, promise or representation, express or implied, as to the future performance of Funding Circle or its business. Any historical information contained in this statistical information is not indicative of future performance. The information contained in this document is provided as of the dates shown. Nothing in this document should be construed as legal, tax, investment, financial, or accounting advice, or solicitation for or an offer to invest in Funding Circle. About us: Funding Circle (LSE: FCH) is the UK’s leading SME finance platform. Since 2010, we have extended more than £17bn in credit to over 125,000 UK businesses, helping them power the economy and their communities. By combining proprietary AI-powered credit models with a human touch, we provide a seamless experience that allows SMEs to borrow, pay later, and spend through a single ecosystem. For institutional investors, Funding Circle offers access to an attractive, underserved asset class through a platform built on deep data and a proven track record of robust returns. Business Review It has been a standout year for Funding Circle. We supported more small businesses than ever before, grew revenue 28% to £204 million, achieving our medium-term revenue target a year ahead of schedule, grew profit before tax (“PBT”) to over £20 million and achieved record Circler engagement. In 2024, we launched our plan to become a simpler, leaner, and UK-focused multi-product business, and, after two years of strong execution, we are realising the benefits. Our performance was driven by new product innovation and strong demand, underpinned by the power of our proprietary data and technology and capital-light business model. Our position as the UK’s leading SME finance platform is stronger than ever. We are serving a large and underserved market, enabling businesses to borrow, pay later, and spend, delivering a superior customer experience and attractive returns to our platform investors. And, we’re still just getting started. Business finance that backs small businesses For 15 years, we have backed the small businesses that keep the UK economy moving. We have extended c.£17 billion of credit to over 125,000 UK businesses. We’re passionate about what we do - the businesses we support are the restaurants, popcorn makers, furniture manufacturers and flooring suppliers. They sit at the heart of local communities, driving growth and creating jobs and it’s an honour to play a small but important part in their stories. In 2025, lending through Funding Circle supported 117,000 jobs, £7.9 billion in GDP contribution and £2.2 billion in tax receipts. We once again lent to businesses in every one of the country’s 650 constituencies, powering tens of thousands of SMEs. As we have diversified our product set, it has been pleasing to see the impact, we now offer over ten different products, we have a customer transaction every 38 seconds (vs every half an hour in 2021), and in H2 last year, 50% of our credit extended came from outside our core term loan products. We remain capital-light with a robust balance sheet. We are continuing to return value to shareholders through share buybacks, having purchased 17% of our initial share capital since March 2024, while maintaining a strong cash position to support growth. Strategic progress: borrow, pay later, spend Over the last few years, we have executed against our multi-product strategy, driving an expanded customer set, an increased share of wallet and deeper customer engagement. Today, we are a more important part of our customers’ lives. We are executing against our four strategic pillars to drive profitable growth: 1. Get to ‘Yes’: Expanding our product offering, improving our customer service and our credit segmentation to get to ‘Yes’ for more businesses. This year we reorganised our sales teams to better serve customers’ financial holistic needs, launched a shorter-term loan product, and further expanded our Marketplace partnerships to support those we cannot fund directly. 2. Expand our audience: Through new distribution channels and product sets, we are broadening the range of customers we can serve and attract. Our Cashback card is bringing new customers into the Funding Circle ecosystem. We continue to invest in our existing direct and intermediated distribution channels and our new partnership with TNT Sports, building on our existing partnership with Gallagher PREM Rugby, will also put Funding Circle in front of new SME audiences. 3. Scale our product offering: We are driving our newer products, FlexiPay and Cashback card, towards scale and profitability. We have made good progress building out product features to offer more flexibility for customers. 4. Build a seamless lifetime customer experience: We are serving our customers across a broader set of needs and by solving more problems for our customers, we are laying the foundations for long-term relationships as their trusted financial partner. Our technology and data advantage When we speak to our customers, they want fast and easy access to credit with a human touch. In a small business, the owners are the operators, the marketers and the financiers. We provide a six minute application form, instant decisions for 73% of applicants, and funding in as little as 24 hours. This drives strong satisfaction with an NPS (Term Loans) of 79 and lets customers focus on what they do best, running their businesses. We can do this thanks to our data and technology, which delivers a competitive advantage. Our AI-powered risk models are trained with our proprietary data on hundreds of thousands of loans and transactions alongside public data sources, discriminating risk three times better than bureau scores alone. We continue to invest in our technology and data stack. Gen AI forms part of this as we evolve into an AI-native organisation. We are leveraging AI to improve customer experience and productivity - from better understanding customer sentiment and serving customers faster, to speeding up product development. We are deploying Gen AI thoughtfully and safely with a ‘human in the loop’ approach. People and culture Our results and strategic progress are all testament to the hard work of our Circlers. It is their passion, commitment and dedication that means we continue to help more SMEs thrive. We achieved a record employee engagement score of 74% in 2025. This year, we launched our new ‘People Pact’ reflecting our collective commitment to be all in and ‘On a Mission’ every day to back small businesses, to grow fast, to belong together, to build better, and to be different. At Funding Circle we are on a mission that really matters and ultimately reaps rewards for our Circlers, our customers, our investors and shareholders, and our business. Looking ahead We are excited by the potential that we have to continue to become our customers’ trusted financial partner. We enter 2026 with a clear platform for growth as we become a more meaningful part of our customers’ lives, serving more of their needs and capturing a larger share of their financing, to fuel even more SME success stories across the UK. Financial review Outperforming expectations and delivering growing PBT Overview of the year ended 31 December 2025 We are pleased to report that the Group delivered strong revenue and sustainable profit growth in 2025, demonstrating continued scalability following the move to profitability in 2024. This performance was driven by growth across Term Loans (a longer-term financial product offering) and FlexiPay (a shorter-term line of credit product) which also incorporates the Cashback card (launched in H2 2024), demonstrating the strength of our expanded product suite in meeting the diverse financing needs of SMEs. FlexiPay and the Cashback card are presented as one segment. While these two business segments are at different stages of maturity, product innovation has remained a driver for both. In our more established Term Loans business, we have successfully expanded our product range to include our shorter-term loan offering. Simultaneously, in our high growth FlexiPay segment, we have continued to iterate on features to deepen customer engagement.
Term Loans Term Loans originations increased by 16% to £1,638 million (2024: £1,407 million). Growth was driven by product innovation and increased borrower demand, with a particularly strong Q4 2025. We continue to look at ways to provide access to finance for SMEs. Alongside our principal longer-term financial product, we met business needs through a range of other products: We expanded our loan proposition with a shorter-term loan (6 to 24-month terms). To support the launch, whilst we tested and iterated this product, we funded it through our balance sheet in line with our capital allocation policy. It was funded through the same leveraged warehouse as FlexiPay. The product expansion has been a success and we onboarded an institutional investor, Waterfall Asset Management, in January 2026 to fund the product going forward. We also sold the shorter-term loan portfolio to that investor in line with the value it was carried at. We continued to participate in the government’s Growth Guarantee Scheme (“GGS”) which enabled us to provide finance to SMEs at a lower cost than we would otherwise be able to. We have also continued to grow originations through our Marketplace network of third-party finance providers. This allows us to support even more SMEs with access to a wider range of financing options. Under our off-balance-sheet funding model, Term Loans are funded through agreements with institutional investors. During 2025, we signed five forward flow arrangements with investors and we have c.£2.2bn future funding in place including the institutional funders we onboarded for shorter-term loans earlier this year (31 December 2024: c.£2.1 billion). Assets under Management (“AuM”) started to grow again and reached £2.8 billion, as new lending outpaced the amortisation of the legacy Covid-19 government-guaranteed loans. As at 31 December 2025, the legacy Covid-19 loans represented c.8% of total AuM (31 December 2024: 27%). The Term Loans business delivered revenue of £167.4 million, growing 17% (2024: £142.6 million). This growth came principally from originations and successful scaling of our shorter-term loan offering. The income from shorter-term loans is presented within investment income as we earned interest whilst the loans were on-balance-sheet. Going forward this will move to a fee-based model where we earn an upfront transaction fee and a servicing fee in line with our other Term Loans products. Profit before tax was £32.2 million, up from £19.0 million in 2024 (£16.7 million in 2024 after exceptional items). PBT margin increased to 19.2% (2024: 13.3%; 2024: 11.7% after exceptional items), showing the strong efficiency and scalability of our established platform business. FlexiPay and Cashback card Our line of credit product, FlexiPay, has demonstrated significant growth to date and we continue to invest in it. FlexiPay includes a line of credit product and a Cashback card. Transactions grew by 66% to £815 million (2024: £492 million), driven by customer growth and new features, increasing customer engagement. We also continue to scale Cashback card, launched in H2 2024. Active accounts increased by 56% to nearly 20,000 in 2025, driving transaction growth. AuM grew to £206 million at 31 December 2025 (2024: £119 million), following transaction and active account growth. Revenue for FlexiPay was £36.9 million in 2025, increasing from £17.5 million in 2024, primarily due to interest income growth. This was driven by a rise in transactions and fee growth. The average fee for each drawdown grew to 7.3% (2024: 5.8%), reflecting a longer average repayment period after offering wider repayment terms during 2024 of 1, 3, 6, 9 or 12 months. The FlexiPay segment has two primary products – FlexiPay, a line of credit and a Cashback card. The line of credit offers the instant ability to settle invoices or withdraw cash via bank transfer or the FlexiPay card. A one-off drawdown fee is charged, with repayment spread over 1-12 months. There is no additional interest. On our Cashback card, when a customer transacts, an interchange fee of 1.75% is earned alongside interest on any revolving balances. The product offers customers 2% cashback in the first six months, followed by 1% thereafter. FlexiPay is funded through Funding Circle’s invested capital and a senior debt facility with Citi. The lines of credit are part of Funding Circle’s balance sheet. The interest payable on this facility is shown in “cost of funds” and is based on SONIA plus a margin. This facility is currently £240 million with the ability to upsize further and is due for renewal in April 2026. This facility now only funds FlexiPay, however during 2025 the facility also funded our shorter-term loans and was £291 million at 31 December 2025, prior to an institutional investor being onboarded for future shorter-term loan funding. Loss before tax was £11.9 million (2024: loss before tax of £15.9 million after exceptional items, loss before tax of £15.6 million after exceptional items), with continued investment to support product momentum. Marketing costs and expected credit losses are recognised upfront, creating an initial “j-curve” effect. However, given the recurring nature of these products, we expect to generate repeat revenues that drive long-term profitability. Over 80% of the 2025 revenues came from customers onboarded pre-2025 and earlier cohorts are now cash generative.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
