Find Me Funders
Why does a funder want a voided cheque and my driver's licence?
The small documents each answer one specific question, and each of them stops a file on its own when it is missing or unreadable.
Drafted with AI assistance. Not yet independently checked. Nobody has verified the claims on this page against a source, so treat the figures and legal points as a starting point rather than as settled, and confirm anything you are about to act on. How we check things.
Why does a lender need a voided check and a copy of my driver's license?
The voided cheque proves the account and routing numbers belong to your business, so payments debit the right account. The photo ID satisfies identity verification obligations and lets the lender match you to the credit file and the personal guarantee. The EIN letter, articles and good-standing certificate establish that the legal entity exists and is the one named on the agreement. None of them is optional, and an illegible copy is the same as a missing one.
What each one is for
How to tell a legitimate request from a harvesting one
The documents are ordinary. Who is asking, and how, is the part worth checking, because this exact list is also what an identity thief needs.
Signals that the request is legitimate:
- You know the legal name of the company asking, and you found it yourself rather than being told it.
- The request arrives from a corporate email domain matching that company, or through a portal on that company's own site.
- Nobody has asked for online banking credentials. A read-only bank data connection through a recognised aggregator is normal; handing over a username and password is not.
- The authorisation you are asked to sign names a specific party and a specific purpose.
- Nobody is rushing you to send documents before you have been told what the product is, what it costs, and who the funder is.
Signals to stop on:
- A request for a signed blank ACH authorisation, or a signed agreement with the amounts left open.
- A request to send your ID by text message or a consumer messaging app to a mobile number.
- A "verification deposit" you are asked to send, or a small transfer requested to prove the account works.
- A form collecting your Social Security number before anyone has identified themselves or named the funder.
- Pressure to send everything today, to a personal email address.
Where you are sending a scan, labelling it costs nothing. A light note across a non-critical part of the image reading "for [company name] application, [date]" makes a reused copy obvious later, and it is accepted routinely.
The small problems that stop a file
Why the small items cause disproportionate delay
They are requested last, they seem trivial, and each one is a hard stop. A file cannot fund without a verified debit account. It cannot fund without identity verification completed. It cannot fund against an entity the state shows as delinquent. There is no partial credit and no workaround, and each round trip re-enters a queue.
Nothing in that arithmetic is about underwriting. It is queue position, and it is the part of a funding timeline you control completely.
The five-minute version of preparation
Put these in one folder now: a voided cheque or bank letter, a clean scan of each owner's ID, the EIN letter, the formation documents, the operating agreement, a current good-standing certificate, and any DBA filing. That folder covers the small-document stipulations at every tier of the market, and assembling it costs you nothing while you are not under time pressure.
Where this applies
Related questions
Why does a lender need a voided check and a copy of my driver's license?
The voided cheque proves the account and routing numbers belong to your business, so payments debit the right account. The photo ID satisfies identity verification obligations and lets the lender match you to the credit file and the personal guarantee. The EIN letter, articles and good-standing certificate establish that the legal entity exists and is the one named on the agreement. None of them is optional, and an illegible copy is the same as a missing one.
Which funding products does this apply to?
Merchant Cash Advance, Working Capital, Term Loan, Business Line of Credit, Equipment Financing. Each has its own page listing the funders in this directory that offer it and what each one publishes about its terms.
Are the figures here quotes?
No. Every worked example is labelled illustrative and exists to show the arithmetic. What a particular lender charges is on that lender's page, where it publishes it at all.
Who writes this?
The Find Me Funders research desk. Some drafting is AI-assisted, and every page that is says so at the top, including whether a person has checked its claims yet.
How do I know a figure here is right?
Where a page carries the green notice, its claims were checked against the sources listed at the end and a reviewer is named. Where it carries the amber one, nobody has verified it yet and you should confirm anything you plan to act on.
Are the examples real deals?
No. Every worked example is labelled illustrative and exists to show the arithmetic. What any particular lender charges is on that lender's page, where it publishes it.
Why do you never say what a typical rate is?
Because we cannot source it. A market average assembled from lenders who do not publish prices is a guess with a decimal point on it. Where a lender publishes a figure, we show that figure and say where it came from.
Is this financial or legal advice?
No. It is general information about how these products work. Outcomes depend on your contract and your state, and a lawyer or accountant licensed where you are is the person to ask about your situation.
Can I reuse this content?
Quote a paragraph with a link back. Do not republish whole articles.