NZ business lending glossary
Last reviewed: 2026-05-13 · General information only — not regulated financial or legal advice.
Four terms come up in almost every New Zealand business loan conversation: PPSR, personal guarantee, CCCFA, and floating charge. Each has a precise legal meaning under NZ legislation. Below is what each term means in practice, which Act or register it lives in, and where to look it up at source.
Personal Property Securities Register (PPSR)
The online register operated by the New Zealand Companies Office where lenders, finance companies, and trade creditors record a security interest over a borrower's personal property — anything other than land. Registration on the PPSR is what gives a secured lender priority over later creditors if the borrower defaults or becomes insolvent.
- Register / regulator:
- www.ppsr.companiesoffice.govt.nz
Personal guarantee
A separate contract in which a director, shareholder, or related individual personally promises to repay a company's loan if the company itself cannot. It pierces the limited-liability protection of the company structure for the specific debt covered. In New Zealand, personal guarantees are the market standard on company business loans from both banks and alternative lenders, and the Property Law Act 2007 sets out specific signing and disclosure requirements.
Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act 2003 (CCCFA)
The principal New Zealand statute regulating consumer credit. The CCCFA imposes responsible-lending obligations, disclosure standards, and conduct requirements on lenders providing consumer credit contracts. Genuine business loans to a company or sole trader for business purposes generally fall outside CCCFA's consumer-credit provisions, but the boundary matters — a loan to an individual borrower for mixed personal-and-business use can fall within the Act, with significant compliance implications for the lender. The Commerce Commission is the enforcement regulator.
Floating charge (general security agreement)
A security interest that attaches to a changing pool of assets — typically a company's inventory, debtors, equipment, and other personal property — rather than a specific identified asset. Under the Personal Property Securities Act 1999, the historic 'floating charge' is replaced in legal effect by a registered general security agreement (GSA) covering present and after-acquired personal property. The borrower can continue trading and disposing of items in the ordinary course of business until the lender 'crystallises' the security on default.
- Register / regulator:
- www.ppsr.companiesoffice.govt.nz
How these four terms relate
The four terms cluster into two pairs. The PPSR and the floating charge (now a registered general security agreement) belong together — the PPSR is the register, and the GSA is the most common secured-lending instrument that gets registered there. Personal property security interests only achieve priority once they appear on the PPSR.
The personal guarantee and the CCCFA are conceptually separate but practically linked at the boundary of "business" versus "consumer" credit. A personal guarantee from a director on a company loan is not a consumer credit contract; a loan written directly to an individual for mixed personal-and-business purposes can be — and that triggers CCCFA responsible-lending obligations on the lender.
For a loan to your company, expect to see all four: a CCCFA-out business-purpose loan, registered on the PPSR via a general security agreement (the modern floating charge) over the company's personal property, and a personal guarantee from each director.
Do I need a personal guarantee?
When NZ lenders require one and what it makes you liable for.
Loans without collateral
Unsecured options that exist in the NZ market.
Documents you'll need
The standard NZ lender documentation checklist.
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