DECTA and SAPI link UK merchant finance to card sales

DECTA has launched an embedded working-capital product for its UK merchant customers, built on financing infrastructure from SAPI, with repayments calculated as a share of card sales rather than fixed monthly instalments. DECTA announced the product, called DECTA Capital, on 29 September 2026, saying the application and offer sit inside the same payment environment that participating merchants already use to process card transactions. Trade title The Paypers reported the same structure on 1 October 2026.

The product is aimed at UK small and medium-sized enterprises that take card payments through DECTA. That is a large pool: at the start of 2025, the UK had an estimated 5,681,930 private-sector SMEs with 0–249 employees, according to the Department for Business and Trade's business population estimates. These firms employed 16.882 million people and generated an estimated £2,828.662bn of turnover (excluding financial and insurance activities), equal to 60% of private-sector employment and 51% of turnover.

Why it matters now is the repayment design. Instead of a fixed sum leaving the business account each month, collections are meant to move with trading. DECTA's announcement frames this as a cash-flow benefit: a slower week produces a smaller payment. SAPI's own published materials add a qualification DECTA's launch wording does not mention — a minimum monthly payment applies regardless of how sales perform. Before any UK business accepts an offer, it needs to establish the full cost, the exact repayment terms and precisely which company it is contracting with.

How the embedded journey works

According to DECTA's announcement, eligible merchants can apply for financing without leaving the payment dashboard they already use. SAPI is described as handling underwriting, servicing and compliance behind that interface. DECTA says offers are typically available within 24 hours — a company claim, not an independently audited figure. SAPI's own general materials on connecting a payment account describe decisions as typically taking 24–48 hours, so it is unclear whether the faster figure is specific to DECTA Capital or a rounding of the same process.

Neither company has published screenshots, integration documentation, or detail on which merchant segments or UK nations can currently see the offer, and it is not stated whether the rollout is complete or phased.

How sales-linked repayment actually works

The core mechanic is straightforward: a pre-agreed percentage of eligible card sales is collected, so the amount taken rises and falls with trading. SAPI's general eligibility page gives a typical repayment percentage of 10%–30%, though no DECTA-specific range has been published.

The part that gets lost in the launch framing is the minimum monthly payment. SAPI's general materials state that where sales-linked collections fall short, a minimum monthly payment equal to one-twelfth of the original advance applies, with any shortfall between what sales-linked collections generated and that minimum collected by Direct Debit. This is SAPI's general rule, and it has not been confirmed whether the same one-twelfth figure applies unchanged to every DECTA Capital contract. In practice, a business with a very quiet month does not necessarily owe nothing: card-linked collections and any Direct Debit top-up together are brought up to at least the minimum, rather than the minimum being added in full on top of whatever card sales generated.

There is also a gap in the public record on mechanics. One SAPI help-centre article describes card receipts flowing into a dedicated Zempler Bank repayment account, split daily. A separate SAPI guide aimed at payment partners describes merchants being settled normally, with SAPI then collecting its percentage separately from the merchant's bank account through GoCardless. Which of these routes applies to DECTA Capital is not stated, and a business should ask directly rather than assume.

The cash-flow appeal, and its limits

DECTA presents this as a cash-flow benefit: a repayment that scales down in a slow trading period is, in principle, easier to manage than a fixed loan instalment due on a fixed date. But three things cut against treating this as payments that simply disappear when sales do. First, the minimum monthly payment described above. Second, duration is described as "estimated" rather than fixed — SAPI's offer-guide materials present an estimated repayment period, not a guaranteed end date, so a run of weak months could extend how long collections continue. Third, refunds, chargebacks, processor outages or a later switch to a different card acquirer could all affect what counts as an eligible card sale for the calculation, and the public materials do not explain how those events are handled.

What the finance costs

SAPI structures the product with a fixed total cost set at the outset, rather than an interest rate that accrues over time. Its help-centre guide "Understanding Your Offer" explains the components: an advance amount, a factor rate applied to that advance to produce a total repayable amount, and a resulting financing cost. SAPI's own illustrative example — not a DECTA Capital quote — uses a £20,000 advance and a 1.30 factor rate.

SAPI states there is no early-repayment charge under its general product description, but the public wording does not make clear whether settling early reduces the fixed financing cost or simply ends collection once the originally agreed total has been paid. A business comparing this against an overdraft, a term loan or another finance option has no DECTA-specific figures to work from yet, and no published annualised cost comparable with other forms of borrowing.

Who actually provides the money

SAPI describes the arrangement as a purchase of future business revenue receivables rather than a loan or a regulated consumer-credit agreement. Two SAPI entities are named in its public materials: SAPI Group Limited, a UK private company (number 12014174) incorporated on 23 May 2019, and SAPI Origination Limited (number 15934839), incorporated on 4 September 2024. DECTA Limited (number 09926210) was incorporated on 22 December 2015. All three are listed as active companies at Companies House. None of this establishes which entity actually signs the DECTA Capital agreement or buys a given merchant's receivables — that detail has not been published and would need to come from the offer documentation itself.

DECTA's launch statement says there are no collateral or credit-score hurdles. SAPI's general eligibility materials complicate that claim: SAPI checks business and director credit data and requires at least one director's personal guarantee. A credit check is not necessarily the same as a credit-score hurdle, and a personal guarantee is not conventional asset collateral, but the guarantee is still a material personal obligation that creates potential personal liability for the director who signs it. Taken together, these requirements make DECTA's wording incomplete rather than straightforwardly contradicted by SAPI's own materials, and a director should obtain the guarantee and default terms from the offer documents before signing. SAPI also states that it generally pays introduction commission to introducers and partners; whether DECTA receives one under this specific arrangement, and on what basis, has not been disclosed.

Regulation and what protection does not apply

SAPI frames the product as a receivables purchase rather than credit, which it says places the arrangement outside the consumer-credit regulatory perimeter that governs loans — though the applicable regulatory treatment can depend on the merchant's legal form and the substance of the agreement, not simply on how the provider labels it. SAPI Group Limited and SAPI Origination Limited say they are registered with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as Annex I firms for anti-money-laundering supervision — but registration for AML purposes is not the same as authorisation to carry out regulated lending or other regulated financial activities, and SAPI states plainly that it is not authorised or regulated for consumer credit.

That distinction has consequences for a business that runs into difficulty. SAPI's own legal information states that the Financial Ombudsman Service may not be able to consider complaints about the financing, and that it is not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Government guidance on offering credit to consumers notes that business-to-business lending generally sits outside consumer-credit authorisation requirements, though lending to sole traders, small partnerships or unincorporated associations can be treated differently — and it is not stated whether DECTA Capital is open to those business forms or limited to incorporated companies.

Before accepting an offer

A business considering a DECTA Capital offer should get the following in writing before signing:

• The advance amount, factor rate or fixed fee, and the resulting total repayable amount in pounds.
• The repayment percentage that applies to its own sales, and which transactions count as eligible card sales.
• How the minimum monthly payment is calculated, and what happens by Direct Debit if sales-linked collections fall short.
• The estimated repayment duration and whether there is a contractual long-stop date.
• Whether early settlement reduces the total financing cost or only ends collection once the agreed total is paid.
• Any arrangement, account, late-payment, default or legal-enforcement charges beyond the stated financing cost.
• Whether a personal guarantee is required, from whom, and the circumstances in which it could be called.
• Which legal entity the business will be contracting with and selling its receivables to.
• How refunds, chargebacks, a processor outage or a change of payment provider affect the repayment calculation.
• What complaints route applies, given SAPI's own warning on Financial Ombudsman Service jurisdiction and the absence of Financial Services Compensation Scheme cover.

What to watch next

DECTA and SAPI have not published DECTA-specific pricing, eligibility criteria or a specimen agreement for this product. SAPI's own help-centre pages also contain unresolved inconsistencies — on eligibility thresholds, on the repayment collection route, and on whether payment-related funds sit with Modulr FS Limited, which SAPI describes as providing e-money services with funds safeguarded under the Electronic Money Regulations rather than held as a bank deposit, or with Zempler Bank. Readers considering an offer should ask DECTA and SAPI directly for the product-specific terms and check the FCA's register for the current authorisation and registration status of any firm named in the agreement before signing.