Black Horse Finance Review

What Black Horse is

Black Horse Ltd is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lloyds Banking Group — the same group that owns Lloyds Bank, Halifax, and Scottish Widows. They are the single largest motor finance provider in the UK by lending volume. They don't lend directly to consumers. Instead, they operate through dealer networks: you buy a car at a dealership, the dealer offers you Black Horse finance as one of several options, and the dealer sets the APR within parameters agreed with Black Horse.

They offer both HP (Hire Purchase) and PCP (Personal Contract Purchase) products. In HP, you pay off the full value and own the car at the end. In PCP, monthly payments are lower but there's a balloon payment at the end if you want to keep the car.

The rate problem

Black Horse doesn't publish a representative APR anywhere on its website. This is common among dealer-panel lenders but it makes comparison impossible. When you walk into a dealership and the salesperson says "we can do it at 8.9%", you have no way to know whether that's competitive for your credit profile or whether the dealer has added margin on top of Black Horse's base rate.

Before the FCA banned Discretionary Commission Arrangements (DCAs) in January 2021, dealers could increase your interest rate and pocket the difference as commission. A dealer could take a Black Horse base rate of, say, 4% and mark it up to 9%, keeping the spread. The customer paid thousands more in interest. The dealer profited. Black Horse facilitated it.

The FCA commission scandal

In January 2024, the FCA launched a review into historical motor finance commission arrangements. Black Horse, as the UK's largest provider, is at the centre of this. The Court of Appeal ruled in October 2024 that dealers acting as credit brokers owed customers a fiduciary duty — meaning they were legally obligated to act in the customer's best interest, not their own.

The deadline for making complaints about motor finance commission has been extended to 29 July 2026. If you took out car finance through a dealer before January 2021 and weren't told about the commission arrangement, you may be owed compensation. This applies to Black Horse agreements specifically because of their dominance in the dealer finance market.

Lloyds Banking Group has set aside billions in provisions for potential motor finance redress. In their 2024 annual results, they provisioned £1.2 billion for motor finance commission complaints. That number tells you the scale of the problem.

Trustpilot

Black Horse has a poor Trustpilot rating — approximately 1.8 stars. The negative reviews cluster around two themes:

• Settlement delays. Customers trying to settle their agreements early report long waits for settlement figures, phone queues, and administrative delays that push them past rate-change deadlines.
• Commission complaints. A large volume of recent reviews relate to the FCA commission investigation. Customers report being told they were not affected, only to discover through claims management companies that commission was paid on their agreement.
• End-of-PCP charges. Customers returning cars at the end of PCP deals report unexpected damage charges and disputes over what constitutes "fair wear and tear".

The verdict

Black Horse isn't a subprime lender charging 30% APR. They're a mainstream lender backed by one of the UK's largest banks. The problem isn't their credit quality — it's their opacity. You cannot find out what rate they'll offer you without sitting in a dealership, under pressure, with a salesperson who earns commission on the finance arrangement.

If a dealer offers you Black Horse finance, ask for the total amount payable in writing. Take it home. Compare it against a bank personal loan at 4.1% or a direct-to-consumer broker. The monthly payment might look similar but the total cost rarely is.

Before you sign

• Ask the dealer for the total amount payable, not just the monthly payment.
• Get a personal loan quote from your bank first — even a rough one gives you a baseline.
• Check if the dealer is earning commission on the finance. Since January 2021, DCAs are banned, but fixed commissions still exist.
• If you had a Black Horse agreement before January 2021, check your eligibility for a commission complaint before the 29 July 2026 deadline.
• Run the numbers in our calculator before signing anything.