Shawbrook Bank has made four tweaks to its criteria for short-term loans (STL) following feedback from its panel of broker partners.

Required experience for STL 1-5 has been redefined to be ‘relevant experience’ rather than having to meet a prescriptive standard.

Meanwhile, on STL 6-9 products Shawbrook requires experience in similar projects and had previously requested that this must have occurred within the last two years. The commercial division has now acknowledged that this timescale is again too prescriptive and, as a result, has changed this to within the last five years.

Thirdly, the commercial division has removed the need for business and personal bank statements on all cases where the client is both rolling up the interest and there is sufficient information contained within the Bank’s credit search to prove satisfactory conduct of personal debt.

Finally, Shawbrook no longer needs to validate the client’s experience in the development market where the Bank’s exit is development finance.

Karen Bennett (pictured), sales and marketing director for Shawbrook Commercial, said: “We regularly review our product range between the lending and senior management teams. This occurs alongside feedback gathered from our broker partners to see if any improvements can be made, and following a recent session around our STL offering we have decided to make these changes.

“We realised that some of our conditions for short term cases have been considered, on occasion, a little rigid by brokers. By updating our criteria, especially around what is classified as ‘relevant’ experience we are providing our broker partners with a streamlined service which will increase confidence in our offering, as well as improving the case journey on STL submissions.”