Lombard
NatWest Group's asset finance business and the largest in the UK, funding vehicles, plant and specialist assets to around £5m a transaction, with 24-hour decisions on smaller tickets.
What they do
Lombard has financed British business equipment for more than 160 years and lends directly rather than through brokers. Hire purchase, conditional sale, finance leases, contract hire and sale and leaseback cover cars and commercial vehicles, plant and machinery and specialist assets such as aircraft and marine. Decisions on transactions up to £150k come inside a day online with no arrangement fee on fixed-rate hire purchase; larger deals up to around £5m run through relationship managers, and companies above £25m of turnover deal directly with the corporate team.
Where they fit in a lower-mid-market raise
For the hard-asset line in a £3–15m structure, this is the deepest and usually the keenest source in the market, and being part of NatWest it can sit alongside a clearing bank senior facility with one group looking at the whole picture. Sale and leaseback on owned plant is a quick way to release cash without touching the senior facility's covenants.
Where they are not the fit
Transactions cap at around £5m, and the product is asset-backed throughout, so there is no term loan, no revolving facility and no cashflow lending. The asset has to be identifiable and fundable: a business without qualifying equipment gains nothing here.
Published terms
- Pricing
- Not published
- Speed to terms
- Fast - ~24-hour decisions for transactions up to £150k (Finder); big-ticket relationship managers route slower/unstated
- Sponsored or sponsorless
- Both - predominantly corporate/SME direct; asset finance is sponsor-agnostic
- Where they lend
- UK-wide with regional relationship managers coverage (dedicated London & South East, South West/Wales regional MDs)
- How they decide
- Direct lender (not a broker). Online decisioning for small tickets (~24h up to £150k); relationship-manager underwriting for big-ticket and companies over £25m turnover. Delegated authority likely for standard asset finance. Authority is delegated below committee on at least part of the book
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.
The desks that lend
Lombard lends through 4 separate books. Which one reads a deal decides the security, the covenant package and the band, so the question is rarely whether Lombard lends, but which of these would own it.
Hire purchase / conditional sale
- Facility
- £5k to £5m
- Security
- Fixed charge
- Funds
- Growth · Refinance
- Rules out
- Asset-backed only - not a cashflow/senior lender; Big-ticket capped ~£5m per transaction; Companies over £25m turnover must engage direct (no online quote)
Finance lease
- Facility
- £5k to £5m
- Security
- Fixed charge
- Funds
- Growth · Refinance
- Rules out
- Asset-backed only; Title retained by lender under lease
Operating lease / contract hire
- Facility
- £5k to £5m
- Security
- Fixed charge
- Funds
- Growth
- Rules out
- Off-balance-sheet rental of high-value/specialist assets; asset handed back at term end
Sale & leaseback (asset refinance)
- Facility
- £5k to £5m
- Security
- Fixed charge
- Funds
- Growth · Refinance
- Rules out
- Releases equity from owned assets only; asset-backed
How they sit against the category
- Its published ceiling is £5m; 26 of the 40 asset-based lenders here go at least as high.
- Like 29 of the 40, it publishes no indicative price — a margin comes from a conversation, not a page.
- It lends through 4 distinct desks, where most firms here run one or two.
Counted across the 40 asset-based & asset-finance lenders 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 Lombard write?
Published facilities reach £5m, 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.
How quickly does Lombard move?
Fast - ~24-hour decisions for transactions up to £150k (Finder); big-ticket relationship managers route slower/unstated. Published timetables describe a clean case; anything unusual in the security or the structure adds to them.
Does Lombard lend to companies without a private-equity sponsor?
Yes. Lombard lends to owner-managed and sponsor-backed borrowers alike, so a company with no private-equity backer is not out of scope on that ground.
Where does Lombard lend?
UK-wide with regional relationship managers coverage (dedicated London & South East, South West/Wales regional MDs).
On the record
May 2026: Appointed Laura Capper as Regional Managing Director, London & South East (NatWest Group press.
Sources: lombard.co.uk
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.