Posts Tagged SMEs
Shining a light into the murky world of SME finance
Posted by Stephen Clarke in Economics on 12/07/2011
This month BDRC Continental, a market research firm, released its SME Finance Monitor, an independent survey of SME financing commissioned by the Business Finance Taskforce. The taskforce is composed of CEOs and senior representatives from Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander and Standard Chartered. With the survey indicating that 59 per cent of loan applicants were successful, the British Bankers’ Association (BBA) have heralded the results as supporting their view that ‘many customers [are] clearly still concerned about the economic climate and so are less inclined to borrow’. In contrast the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), pointing to the fact that only 15 per cent of businesses surveyed had applied for new or renewed credit, argued that many businesses still justifiably fear being rejected by banks. Who is right about the state of SME finance in the UK?
Happy Christmas for German businesses while British SMEs get a lump of coal
Posted by Stephen Clarke in Economics, Politics on 27/12/2010
Last week Civitas released a report detailing the successes of the German and Swiss banking systems. In particular the success of the German savings banks and the Swiss cantonal banks allowed German and Swiss businesses to continue to access credit throughout the recession. The benefits of this have been evident in 2010 as both countries recorded exceptional growth. This is in contrast to the UK, where businesses report constrained credit conditions and the Government futilely attempts to chastise the major banks into lending more to British SMEs.
Business as usual?
Posted by Stephen Clarke in Economics, Politics, Tax and Spend on 01/11/2010
Today the government outlined a number of measures to help small and medium sized businesses. Wanting to create an ‘entrepreneurial decade’ David Cameron has asked Lord Young to carry out a ‘brutally’ honest investigation into how small and medium sized businesses can be supported by removing burdensome regulations and opening up public procurement opportunities. Such moves are welcome, however the Coalition Government still has a long way to go to champion small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), especially if some of their initial policies are anything to go by. Read the rest of this entry »