Credit, Collections & Insolvency News
independent invoice financier, Bibby Financial Services (BFS), is to open a new central London office as it looks to grow its support for SMEs and intermediaries in the South East of England. BFS’s new premises are located at 30 Crown Place in the heart of the City, between Liverpool Street and Moorgate stations. Speaking of…
Read more
Almost half of small businesses across the UK (49%) are relying on securing finance to help them fulfil their growth plans for the year ahead. After three consecutive quarters when small business outlook has remained unchanged (with 34% of business owners predicting growth), the new Business Barometer study from Hitachi Capital Business Finance suggests access…
Read more
New figures released by the Finance & Leasing Association (FLA) show that total asset finance new business (primarily leasing and hire purchase) grew by 6% in September 2021 compared with the same month in 2020. In the nine months to September 2021, new business was 20% higher than in the same period in 2020. The…
Read more
Optimum Finance has announced that it has recruited the former Interim Small Business Commissioner (SBC) as a Non-Executive Director. Philip King, who was also the former Chief Executive of the Chartered Institute of Credit Management (CICM), is joining Optimum. King has worked in the credit industry for more than 40 years and is an acknowledged…
Read moreJust Cashflow has announced that it will be offering new and existing customers a full range of Invoice Finance facilities through a mutually beneficial relationship with Optimum Finance. Chief Commercial Officer, Martine Catton said, “Businesses emerging from a post COVID world are going to need access to the most appropriate financial products so it’s important…
Read more
Time Finance has announced that Ed Rimmer has been confirmed as the permanent Chief Executive Officer (CEO) with immediate effect. Having previously held the position of Chief Operating Officer until April 2020, Ed was reappointed as Interim CEO three months ago. Time Finance specialise in the provision or arrangement of funding solutions to UK businesses…
Read more
Specialist SME invoice finance company Optimum Finance has recruited Vicky Williams as Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Williams joins following the appointment of Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Gordon McIntosh in March this year. Williams appointment means that the new member of management fills the final slot in the Senior Leadership Team, with women holding a 60%…
Read more
New research commissioned by commercial data and analytics provider Dun & Bradstreet has found 45% of 250 UK-based CFOs and finance leaders surveyed are embracing new technologies to increase efficiencies and 43% plan on improving their data quality as they look to increase their ability to manage disruption in 2021. The survey focused on strategies…
Read moreEsme Loans, NatWest’s standalone digital lending platform for SMEs and scale-up businesses, has announced that it will close. Launched as a pilot by NatWest in early 2017, Esme Loans offered an alternative financing option for SME customers looking for faster, unsecured business loans for a wide range of business purposes, alongside its range of conventional…
Read more
New HM Treasury figures have revealed that the banking and finance industry has approved another £2 billion of business loans over the past month, with the figure now rising to almost £73 billion to almost 1.6 million businesses so far through government-backed coronavirus lending schemes. Almost 29,500 Bounce Back Loans have been approved over the…
Read more
Invoice finance firm Optimum Finance has announced the appointment ex-Microsoft Global Director, Gordon McIntosh, as Chief Technical Officer (CTO). Mcintosh has extensive experience with a decade working at Microsoft headquarters in Seattle, Washington. His most recent role at the tech giant was Global Director of Service Engineering for Microsoft’s Volume Licensing and OEM businesses in…
Read more
The volume of Government loans granted to help SMEs through the COVID-19 crisis will be having a potentially devastating impact on the availability of ‘traditional’ lending, causing alarm in the lender broker community according to new research by Allica Bank. The Bank suggests that SMEs could be starved of funding to fuel future growth because…
Read more
Research by debt specialist ACP Altenburg Advisory reveals that ‘normal’ lending to SMEs fell from £168 billion in December 2019 to £152 billion in December 2020, with emergency coronavirus funding through the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBLIS) and the Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS) seeing almost £61 billion lent to such firms by December…
Read more