London-based business challenger bank Allica Bank has broadened its healthcare finance offering to include lending against residential care and nursing home properties on an investment basis, targeting experienced landlords and investors in the sector.

According to a report by Healthcare Today, the new financing option was introduced in direct response to feedback from customers and brokers, and supports investors looking to buy or refinance care and nursing homes. The offering extends to supported living and group homes, as well as properties let to local authorities or housing benefit-funded tenants under commercial lease structures.

Anthony Newman, senior specialist relationship manager for healthcare at Allica Bank, said: "Healthcare remains one of the most resilient areas of the UK economy, underpinned by long-term demand for quality facilities to support our ageing population. By expanding our proposition to include residential investment, we are opening up more lending options for operators looking to invest and grow."

The residential care lending expansion follows a separate enhancement to Allica Bank's healthcare proposition announced in May, when the bank increased its maximum day-one loan sizes to £15 million (€17.8 million) for established healthcare businesses and extended its maximum loan terms to up to 30 years for experienced healthcare operators and up to 20 years for first-time operators.

The two developments together represent a material broadening of Allica Bank's healthcare lending capabilities, positioning the challenger bank as an increasingly significant source of specialist finance for operators and investors across the UK care sector. The combination of higher loan ceilings, extended terms, and now investment-basis lending against residential care properties gives the bank a more comprehensive offering across the healthcare property finance market.

For private healthcare operators and care home investors, the expansion of specialist lending options from a dedicated business bank reflects the continued appetite among financial institutions to deploy capital into the care sector, where demographic-driven demand and long-term lease structures provide a stable underlying investment case. As mainstream lenders apply increasingly cautious criteria to care home lending, challenger banks with sector-specific expertise are filling a growing gap in the market.