The Number of new loans to SMEs has increased in Quarter 1 according to new figures from UK Finance Commenting on the data, Stephen Pegge, Managing Director, Commercial at UK Finance said “The number of new approved loans to SMEs grew slightly in the first quarter of the year, driven in part by increased demand…
BNP Paribas Asset Management announced that its SME (Small & Medium-sized Enterprise) Alternative Financing platform has completed its first transaction, a six-year senior unsecured amortising loan. The loan will enable a specialist recruitment services company based in the West of England to support its business growth. SME Alternative Financing offers BNPP AM’s client base differentiated and…
Alternative business lender ThinCats has announced that it has appointed Greg Beamish to join ThinCats credit team as Head of Credit. Beamish joins with twelve years of investment experience ranging across secured credit to distressed equity, with the latter 8 years focused firmly on the SME space. His experience comes through working at institutions including…
Latest figures released by the Association of Short Term Lenders (ASTL) from its bridging lender members for Quarter 1 2018 have exceeded the outstanding figures for Q4 2017 when for the first-time quarterly completions exceeded £1 billion. Annual completions are now close to £3.8 billion. The value of loans written for the quarter ending 31…
Alternative finance specialist, ThinCats, has announced that Tony Smedley has been appointed as Head of Sales Operations, and Richard Wilson as Head of Marketing. Smedley has most recently been supporting businesses in the finance sector who are preparing for start-up and subsequent growth. He brings 20 years of experience in leading teams in the business…
New research* ‘Investor Sentiment: Alternative Credit’ from NN Investment Partners (NN IP) reveal increasing scarcity of high return assets followed by political risks are the two biggest issues concerning investors over the next two years. The investment manager says this will fuel growing demand for alternative credit, which delivers attractive returns that have low correlation…
Online lender Spotcap today opened the Fintech Fellowship to applicants. The programme offers an £8k award to a postgraduate student studying a fintech related course at a UK university. Applications will be open for four months and close on the 1 August 2018. The fellowship launched last year to raise awareness of the fintech talent…
Zopa has announced a governance restructure in advance of launching its next-generation bank. The re-structure will establish separate boards for the Zopa P2P business, proposed bank (subject to banking licence approval) and Group in order to facilitate the increasing scale of the business, ensure good corporate governance and protect the interests of its customers. The…
ThinCats, the alternative funding specialist, has announced a senior hire to cover the North West region. Richard Lamb joins ThinCats to lead new business origination throughout the North West, after nearly a decade as Relationship Director at NatWest, and having been in corporate banking since 1992. He joins the company’s growing team of experienced bankers who…
A new report by Aldermore titled Future Attitudes has revealed that just under a quarter (23%) of SMEs, representing 1.27million small and medium-sized businesses across the UK, are missing out on new business opportunities due to a lack of available funding a 4% increase on the previous year. The report, which surveyed over a thousand business…