CAF Bank
The banking arm of the Charities Aid Foundation, lending secured property loans of £150k to £10m to UK charities and social purpose enterprises that have traded for at least three years.
What they do
CAF Bank provides banking and secured lending exclusively to the social sector. Loans run from £150k to £10m against a first charge over property, at an indicative all-in cost of roughly two to five per cent linked to Bank of England base rate or fixed for a period, arranged through a relationship director after an initial consultation. Recent lending on public record includes a £9m facility to a housing and care provider and support for a YMCA, which puts real capacity behind the published ceiling.
Where they fit in a lower-mid-market raise
Where the borrower is a charity, housing provider, care operator or social enterprise, this is one of a small number of lenders that understands restricted reserves, grant income and a trustee board's decision-making, and prices accordingly. A £3–10m secured facility for a building purchase, a redevelopment or a refinance is squarely inside what the bank writes, and the cost of that money is well below what a commercial lender would ask of the same covenant.
Where they are not the fit
Eligibility is the whole of the test: ordinary for-profit companies cannot borrow here whatever the security, and neither can an organisation trading for less than three years. Lending is secured on property, so an unsecured working-capital need or a cashflow-based acquisition is outside the product. Above £10m the sector's answer is usually a club of social lenders rather than one balance sheet.
Published terms
- Pricing
- Indicative all-in around 2-5% linked to Bank of England base rate, or fixed for a number of years (guidance only); margin not separately published
- Speed to terms
- Not published
- Sponsored or sponsorless
- Neither in the conventional sense - lends only to UK charities and social purpose enterprises, not sponsor-backed or for-profit corporates
- How they decide
- Initial consultation to discuss plans, then formal application; subject to credit assessment and security (first charge over property); relationship-director led
- Search funds and ETA
- No published route for search-fund or first-time acquirer borrowers
As published by the lender and last reviewed August 2026. Terms quoted on a deal are set by the credit, not by a published band.
What rules a deal out
Stated limits, taken from CAF Bank’s own published criteria. A limit is where a lender starts from, not where it always ends: several of these move on a strong enough credit.
- Social-sector borrowers only
How they sit against the category
- Its published ceiling is £10m; 28 of the 42 challenger and specialist banks here go at least as high.
- 18 of the 42 publish an indicative price at all; it is one of them.
Counted across the 42 challenger & specialist banks in this directory, on what each one publishes. What a lender discloses and what it will do are different things.
Questions this page answers
How large a facility does CAF Bank write?
Published facilities reach £10m, and the bottom of the published range is small-ticket business rather than a corporate facility. A band is what a lender states it will do, not what it will do on a given credit.
Does CAF Bank lend to search funds or ETA buyers?
Not on the published evidence. CAF Bank publishes no route for search-fund or first-time acquirer borrowers. A searcher's route to a lender usually runs through the quality of the target and the equity behind it.
Does CAF Bank lend to companies without a private-equity sponsor?
Yes. CAF Bank lends to owner-managed and corporate borrowers, and publishes no private-equity sponsor proposition.
What does CAF Bank lend?
The published product set is secured property loan. Published sector focus is charities, social enterprise.
Sources
This profile is a curated reference note drawn from public sources, not financial advice or a recommendation. Appetite and terms change; a lender's fit for a given credit is established by approaching it, not inferred from a page.