Lending
Growing Firms: Credit Structured Around Your Revenue, Not Your Real Estate
Operating lines, term loans, commercial mortgages, succession financing, and more — underwritten by a team that speaks your industry's language.
Get a Lending Proposal Within 10 Business Days →Six Ways We Finance Professional Firms
Commercial Operating Lines of Credit
You'll secure revolving working capital sized to your actual revenue cycle — not a generic advance rate applied to a snapshot of your receivables. Our VP of Commercial Lending, Marcus Thibodeau, structures every operating facility around the way your firm actually bills and collects. Here's how:
- Revolving facilities from $100K to $10M
- Priced off Saskbank prime rate (currently 5.95%) + margin, with a transparent pricing grid based on deposit relationship, utilization, and credit quality — view our published lending rate tiers
- Borrowing base calculated from your billing frequency, average collection period, seasonal variation, and client concentration — not a one-size-fits-all formula
- Monthly borrowing base reports for facilities above $2M; quarterly below that threshold — formatted in plain language, not bank jargon
- Margin tiers from prime +1.25% to prime +3.50%, depending on credit quality and deposit relationship depth
You'll receive your account comparison guide and loan amortization tables before signing — so you can evaluate the full cost before any commitment is made. Firms with an active business banking relationship benefit from preferential pricing on the lower end of each margin tier.
All lending products are subject to credit approval. Your relationship manager will provide a customized interest rate schedule based on your specific profile.
Term Lending for Professional Firms
You'll get capital for acquisitions, buyouts, office fit-outs, and technology — with prepayment terms disclosed before you sign, including the exact penalty calculation formula. Unlike institutions that apply the same credit template to trucking companies and law firms alike, our underwriting team uses DCF methodology calibrated to your profession's specific economics.
- Fixed-rate and variable-rate term loans — fixed rates currently available from 5.45% to 7.25%; variable from prime +1.00% to prime +3.00% (see current rates)
- Amortization: 3 to 15 years, structured to match the useful life of the asset or the expected return on the investment
- Purposes: office fit-outs, technology infrastructure, practice acquisitions, partner buyouts, equipment for scaling operations
- DCF methodology anchored to trailing 3-year adjusted EBITDA with profession-specific multiples (legal, accounting, engineering, healthcare, IT services, marketing & creative)
- Prepayment terms and exact penalty formulas disclosed upfront — no surprises buried in schedule amendments
- Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act compliance for all applicable transactions
Marcus Thibodeau's team has financed over $28 million in practice transitions since 2019. Every term sheet includes a complete amortization schedule, a total-cost-of-borrowing summary, and the prepayment penalty formula written in plain arithmetic — not legalese. Download our loan amortization calculator to model your own scenarios before we meet.
Commercial Real Estate Financing
You'll know whether to lease or buy — because we run the analysis as part of our advisory process, before you commit to either. Many professional firms assume ownership is always the better long-term play, but the math depends on your cash flow patterns, tax situation, and growth trajectory. We model both scenarios so you can compare with confidence.
- Owner-occupied professional office space only (no speculative development) — we finance clinics, law offices, engineering studios, and similar professional premises
- Up to 75% loan-to-value, with higher ratios considered for established firms with strong DSCR profiles
- Amortization up to 25 years, with 5-year fixed and variable options available
- 5-year fixed rate currently at 5.75%; variable at prime +0.75% — see the full commercial mortgage rate schedule
- Lease-vs.-buy analysis provided at no additional cost, including net present value calculations, tax impact modelling, and opportunity cost assessment
- Interest rate schedules published on the Rates page and updated with every Bank of Canada overnight rate adjustment
If ownership makes financial sense for your firm, we'll structure the mortgage to complement your existing operating facility — not compete with it for cash flow. If leasing is the better option, we'll tell you that too. Our revenue comes from the relationship, not from any single transaction.
Succession & Transition Financing
You'll structure the ownership transition on your terms — with phased drawdowns that match your equity purchase schedule and guarantee provisions that step down as you build equity. Succession is where our cash-flow-first underwriting model provides the most tangible advantage: we underwrite the future earning power of the practice, not just the tangible assets on the balance sheet today.
- Partner buy-ins, retirements, and full practice sales — we've financed transitions across legal, accounting, engineering, healthcare, and IT services
- Phased drawdowns matching equity purchase schedule — capital flows when you need it, not in a single lump sum that inflates your carrying costs
- Stepped guarantee provisions tied to equity transfer milestones — as your ownership stake grows, your guarantee exposure shrinks on a predetermined schedule
- Credit model analyzes client retention risk, key-person dependency, and revenue portability — the factors that actually predict whether a practice will sustain its value through transition
- Coordination with Saskbank's wealth management division for retiring partners' RRSP, TFSA, and estate planning needs
Our loan amortization tables are customized to match your transition timeline — not the other way around. Desmond Achebe, our Director of Wealth Management, works alongside Marcus Thibodeau's lending team to ensure the financing structure and the retiring partners' personal financial plans reinforce each other. Read our Succession Planning Playbook for a detailed walkthrough of the four most common transition structures we finance.
Letters of Credit & Performance Guarantees
You'll have a standby LC or performance bond in hand within five business days — so you can bid on government and institutional contracts with confidence. Many professional firms lose contract opportunities because their existing bank takes three to four weeks to issue an LC. We've built a process that eliminates that bottleneck.
- Standby LCs and performance bonds for government, institutional, and corporate contracts
- Issued against existing credit facility or cash collateral — no separate application required for clients with an active lending relationship
- 5 business day turnaround from receipt of complete documentation — our Q4 2025 actual average was 3.8 business days
- Issuance fee: 1.0% of face value (minimum $500) — view the complete fee schedule
- Correspondent bank relationships for international requirements, including cross-border contracts with U.S. and European counterparties
If your firm regularly bids on public-sector or institutional contracts, we can pre-approve an LC facility as part of your overall credit structure — so that when the RFP drops, your financing is already in place. Talk to our team about building LC capacity into your next annual review.
Foreign Exchange & Wire Transfers
You'll see our markup over the interbank rate published for each currency pair — because opaque FX spreads are a cost your firm shouldn't have to guess at. Most Canadian banks bury their FX margin inside the "exchange rate" without disclosing it. We separate the two so you can see exactly what the currency costs and exactly what we charge.
- Spot and forward FX in 14 major currencies, including USD, EUR, GBP, CHF, JPY, AUD, and CAD cross-rates
- Published markup over interbank rate for each currency pair — typically 0.25% to 0.75% depending on volume and frequency
- Wire transfers processed same-day before 2:00 p.m. ET — domestic ($15) and international ($35), with no hidden correspondent bank charges on our end
- Hedging strategies for predictable FX cash flows above $500K annually — forward contracts, window forwards, and structured hedges tailored to your billing cycle
- FX rate alerts available for clients with recurring cross-border revenue, so you can execute at opportune rates
Our treasury services team, led by Anya Kovalenko, designs FX strategies during onboarding for clients with cross-border revenue. If your firm bills in USD or EUR, even intermittently, a five-minute conversation about your FX exposure could save thousands annually.
How Our Lending Has Transformed These Firms
Moreau & Gagnon LLP
28-Lawyer Firm · $14.5M Annual Billings · Ottawa
- Available credit increased $500K without additional security — funded by recognizing $2.1M in recurring retainer revenue as stable borrowing base
- Interest cost decreased 45 bps through deposit-linked pricing tier
- Annual compliance submissions reduced from 23 to 8 — saving dozens of non-billable partner hours
Estimated $35,000 annual savings in non-billable partner time. Managing Partner Jean-François Moreau noted: "The approval for our lateral hire facility came in six business days. Our previous bank took thirteen weeks the last time."
Kaleo Digital Inc.
55-Person Digital Agency · $8.2M Revenue · Toronto
- Credit tripled from $400K to $1.2M — driven by our recognition of $4.9M in stable retainer revenue that their previous bank classified as "volatile"
- Blended borrowing cost dropped ~140 bps
- Two-tranche structure: retainer line (prime +1.75%) + seasonal project line (prime +2.5%) — each sized independently based on actual cash flow patterns
$380K in retained earnings preserved for a new analytics platform. Founder Diana Soh now uses the seasonal line to bridge the gap between project milestone payments without drawing on core working capital.
Bennett Health Associates
4-Clinic Physio Network · $5.8M Revenue · Ottawa Region
- Monthly lease payments dropped $3,200 after refinancing from a generic commercial mortgage to a profession-specific structure
- Personal guarantee: 100% → 25% in 14 months, with step-down milestones tied to clinic-level revenue targets
- Fifth clinic opened with Saskbank financing; hit breakeven in month 8 (2 months ahead of schedule)
Guarantee step-down triggered automatically by clinic performance metrics agreed at signing. Owner Dr. Sana Malik: "Nobody at my previous bank ever suggested reducing my guarantee. Saskbank raised it in our first meeting."
Northpine IT Solutions
34-Employee MSP · $7.6M ARR · Waterloo
- Credit decision in 8 business days — from complete application to signed commitment letter
- $680K equipment loan + $300K supplemental working capital, structured to support a major government contract mobilization
- Revenue grew 31% YoY; government contract scope expanded by $400K in year two, partly enabled by the speed of our LC issuance process
Hardware deployed and team hired within 60 days of approval. The competing bidder's bank took nine weeks to issue a commitment letter — by which point the contract had already been awarded to Northpine.
Your firm could be the next outcome on this list — request your lending proposal →
Credit Decisions Faster Than You're Used To
For facilities over $2 million, our published commitment is 20 business days. In Q4 2025, our actual average was 16.1 business days. Time-sensitive deals — practice acquisitions with closing deadlines, government contract mobilizations, lateral partner hires requiring immediate facility increases — are flagged internally and compressed to as few as 5 business days.
How do we move this fast? Our credit team, led by Dr. Priya Venkatesh (Chief Risk Officer, former OSFI risk analyst), uses a proprietary scoring model built specifically for professional services firms. Because the model already understands your industry's economics, we don't waste weeks educating underwriters on why recurring retainer revenue behaves differently than widget sales.
We publish our actual average turnaround each quarter. No hedging, no asterisks. See the data for yourself in our annual "What We Got Wrong" transparency report.
Why Our Underwriting Works Better for Your Firm
Conventional Approach
- Collateral-first: real estate appraisal, equipment schedules, inventory counts — assets most professional firms don't carry
- Generic 75% advance rate applied to total receivables, regardless of whether those receivables are 30-day retainers or 180-day construction invoices
- Personal guarantees required at 100% as default — with no path to reduction discussed at signing
- One credit model for manufacturers, law firms, and trucking companies alike — because the bank's systems weren't built to differentiate
- Revenue volatility treated as risk without analyzing contract structure, client concentration, or the difference between retainer and project revenue
Saskbank Approach
- Cash-flow-first: recurring revenue quality, contract duration, client diversification, and realization rates are the primary credit drivers
- Advance rate calibrated to your actual collection patterns and billing cycle — a firm with 45-day average collections and 94% realization earns a higher advance rate than a firm with 90-day collections and 78% realization
- Guarantee provisions structured with explicit, milestone-based step-downs — the amount, the conditions, and the timeline are documented in your commitment letter before you sign
- Proprietary scoring model built specifically for professional services and service companies, incorporating over seven years of performance data from 1,400+ business clients
- Retainer revenue and project revenue assessed independently — because they behave differently, carry different risk profiles, and deserve different credit treatment
Our commercial loan loss rate since inception stands at 0.14%, compared to the Canadian Schedule I bank average of approximately 0.35%. We believe the data substantiates the approach: professional firms with diversified, recurring revenue are strong credits, and their lending terms should reflect that reality. Our CET1 ratio of 14.2% — well above OSFI minimums — gives us the capital strength to back that conviction. Learn more about our approach and the team behind it.
Want to see how our model would assess your firm? Read Dr. Priya Venkatesh's detailed analysis of how major bank credit models systematically disadvantage service-based firms — and what to do about it.
The Team Behind Your Lending Facility
Every lending relationship at Saskbank is managed by a named banker with deep industry expertise — not a rotating cast of generalists. Our average relationship manager tenure is 3.8 years per account, and our commercial lending team collectively brings over 40 years of experience in professional services credit.
Marcus Thibodeau
VP, Commercial Lending
15 years in commercial credit (BDC, Desjardins). Bilingual (EN/FR). Marcus structures every lending facility personally and remains your primary contact throughout the relationship. He's financed practice transitions, growth capital, and operating facilities across legal, accounting, engineering, healthcare, and IT services.
Dr. Priya Venkatesh
Chief Risk Officer
Ph.D. Financial Economics (U of T). Former OSFI risk analyst (6 years). Priya designed the proprietary scoring model that powers our credit decisions — and she personally reviews every facility above $2 million. Her model is why we can move faster and price more accurately than institutions using generic scorecards.
Desmond Achebe
Director, Wealth Management
CFP, CIM. 96% client retention rate over a 12-year career. Desmond works alongside the lending team on succession and transition financing, ensuring the credit structure and the retiring partners' personal financial plans reinforce each other — saving firms like Ridgeline Structural Engineers $185,000 in combined tax savings.
Established Firm Principals: Lending Terms You Can Verify Before You Apply
We'll review your current lending arrangement, model the impact of a transition, and deliver a complete proposal — including rate, structure, guarantee terms, and timeline — within 10 business days. You'll receive a side-by-side comparison showing exactly what changes and what improves. No obligation, no pressure, and no hidden conditions.
Request Your Lending Proposal — Complete Analysis in 10 Business DaysDownload our lending criteria guide and bank switching checklist →