Capital on Tap

Co-founders David Luck (Executive Chairman) and Jan Farrarons (CEO) oversee the firm's credit strategy. The underwriting engine itself is a proprietary algorithm that relies on open-banking feeds and merchant-category data, so day-to-day credit-line decisions are automated rather than made by a traditional investment committee. Ongoing portfolio-performance monitoring is managed by an internal analytics team in London.

Customer acquisition is fully direct-to-business, driven by search, partnerships with accounting-software platforms such as Xero and QuickBooks, and an instant-decision digital application. The firm does not originate through broker networks or aggregator sites. Its 200,000-account base was built almost entirely through online channels.

While the firm does not publicly name its funding partners, the credit-card receivables are structured under institutional credit lines typical of specialty-finance platforms. These facilities are drawn as card balances grow, with repayment flows cycling the capital back for redeployment. There is no retail deposit base funding the lending book.

Capital on Tap focuses on active, registered small businesses—typically limited companies or sole traders with at least six months of trading history. It does not target pre-revenue startups. The credit model favors businesses with steady transaction volumes, such as retailers, marketing agencies, and professional-services firms, and it explicitly avoids speculative or high-burn-rate ventures.

The savings account, provided through ClearBank, functions as a deposit product governed by the UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme. It is not a funding source for the lending book but serves as a retention tool. Capital on Tap earns a net interest margin on deposits placed with ClearBank, and the account's presence deepens the primary customer relationship without commingling credit and deposit balance sheets.

Economically, it behaves like a hybrid. Revenue comes from two streams: interest income on revolving balances and interchange fees from card networks. Because the firm captures a fee on every transaction regardless of whether the customer revolves a balance, its unit economics resemble a payments business with an embedded lending yield. An allocator should evaluate it against both non-bank credit-card issuers and high-frequency merchant-acquiring platforms.

Capital on Tap operates under UK Financial Conduct Authority authorization as a consumer-credit firm. The Instant Savings account, provided through ClearBank, falls under the Prudential Regulation Authority and Financial Services Compensation Scheme framework. The firm itself is not a bank, so it does not take retail deposits onto its own balance sheet for lending purposes.