Capital for businesses, not portfolios

What Empowerment is

Empowerment is Pinnora’s programme of capital for businesses. It offers facilities for firms at different stages, from $5,000 up to $50M, at rates from about 9.5% a year. Each facility sets out its amount range, its rate, the terms you can choose in months and what it asks of a business — such as how long it has been trading — on the Empowerment screen of the app.

A facility is a loan to your business, paid into your funding wallet and repaid in equal instalments. No share of your business is taken, and the rate is fixed at the moment you apply.

Who can apply

• A verified identity. Applying needs the identity check that also unlocks withdrawals. You can verify in the app in a few minutes; see how verification works.
• A business that meets the facility’s requirements. Each facility says what it needs before you apply, and an amount outside its range or a term it does not offer is refused at once rather than after a wait.
• One application at a time per facility. While one is in review, its Apply button says so, and you can apply for that facility again once the first application has been decided.

How to apply

1. Choose a facility on the Empowerment screen and compare its amount range, rate and terms with what your business needs.
2. Tell us about the business: its name, its sector, how long it has been trading, its annual revenue, how much you want, over how many months and what the money is for.
3. Submit. You get a reference starting EMP- straight away, and a notification saying how long a decision takes; at the moment it is about 5 days.
4. Hear back. You are told as soon as the application is approved or declined. If it is declined, the notification gives the reason or asks you to contact support.

Drawing the money down

Once an application is approved, open Empowerment and draw it down. The whole amount is paid into your funding wallet at once, and from that moment what you owe is fixed: the amount, at the rate you were quoted when you applied, spread over the number of months you chose. A later change to the facility’s rate changes nothing that has already been lent.

The notification that confirms the payment tells you the total to repay, the amount of each instalment and when the first one is due. Instalments fall every 30 days from the day the money was paid out.

Repaying a facility

Each instalment is collected from the cash in your Pinnora account, or you can pay it by bank transfer quoting the facility’s EMP- reference. Our team records every repayment against your facility, and you are notified of each one, with what is still owed and when the next instalment is due, and told when the facility is repaid in full.

The Empowerment screen shows each facility as it stands: how much of the total you have repaid, what is outstanding, and the next instalment or anything overdue. Questions about a repayment go to support, quoting the same reference.

How the programme’s figures are counted

The Empowerment screen also shows how the programme is doing: what has been paid out, to how many businesses, and which sectors the approved applications come from. Those figures are counted from the applications themselves — an application has to be approved before it counts towards the sectors, and paid out before it counts towards the money and the businesses.

Things to know

• A facility must be repaid in full, however the business does. Borrow what the business can comfortably repay from its own income.
• The amounts and rates on this page are a guide. The figures that apply are the ones the application form shows before you submit it.
• Borrowing for yourself rather than a business? A loan against your investments may suit you better.