Regional distribution of business loans revealed

19th January 2021 Commercial Credit Management |

New data published by the British Business Bank has revealed the regional distribution of loans under the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) and the Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS). More than 1.4 million loans have supported businesses and protected jobs across all sectors. The figures show that the retail and construction sectors have benefitted…

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SME lending surge in first three quarters of 2020 more than double 2019 total

8th January 2021 Commercial Credit Management |

New data from UK Finance has revealed that gross lending to SMEs in the first three quarters of 2020 amounted to more than double the annual total for 2019, reaching £54 billion. The data, released as part of the quarterly Business Finance Review, shows that the UK banking and finance industry has delivered an unprecedented…

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Parliamentary Committee criticises Bounce Back Loan Scheme

16th December 2020 Commercial Credit Management |

Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee has today has published a  report into the Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS) set up to help businesses at the height of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. The new report contains six key findings: The Government was not sufficiently prepared to support micro-businesses despite the economic impact of the pandemic being a known risk…

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Small Businesses turn to finance as confidence starts to return

30th November 2020 Commercial Credit Management |

Following a concentrated period of uncertainty, new research from Hitachi Capital Business Finance found a significant proportion of small businesses are considering finance to enact their plans for 2021, as confidence gradually returns. Looking ahead to 2021, just over half (56%) of small business owners said they were considering taking finance for some of the…

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Covid-19 support schemes back nearly 1.5m businesses

20th November 2020 Commercial Credit Management |

Latest HM Treasury figures have revealed that nearly 1.5 million businesses across the country are now supported by the UK’s banking and finance industry with a total of £65.5 billion in lending through government-backed Coronavirus lending schemes. Almost 1.4 million smaller businesses have now accessed financing as part of the Bounce Back Loan Scheme, with…

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Business borrowing set to rise five fold

3rd November 2020 Commercial Credit Management |

The Covid-19 pandemic will cause firms to borrow over five times the amount in 2020 than in 2019, with many unlikely to start repaying until 2022 with total stock of bank lending to businesses forecast to close 2020 at £493bn, an 11% year on year increase, due to firms borrowing heavily through the pandemic. EY…

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Treasury extends emergency business loans scheme

3rd November 2020 Commercial Credit Management |

The Treasury has announced that applications for the Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS), Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme and Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme will now be open until the end of January. The extension, which carries support before the previous end point of 30th November, also applies to the Future Fund, an initiative…

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557,000 businesses are now in ‘significant distress’

30th October 2020 Commercial Credit Management |

The latest Red Flag Alert research for Q3 2020 has recorded that 557,000 businesses are now in ‘significant distress’ after the largest quarterly leap in financially distressed companies since 2017. This 6% increase (from 527,000 in Q2 2020) in the last three months comes despite a backlog of court action preventing many CCJs and winding…

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Over 1.4m businesses supported through Government lending schemes

23rd October 2020 Commercial Credit Management |

Latest figures from HM Treasury have revealed that the UK’s banking and finance industry has supported over 1.4 million businesses across the country through government-backed Coronavirus lending schemes. Lenders have approved over 73,000 facilities through the CBIL scheme and over 1.3 million business owners have benefited from the Bounce Back Loan scheme. For larger businesses,…

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Future fund approves £770.8m for 745 companies

21st October 2020 Commercial Credit Management |

The British Business Bank has published Future Fund data that gives a detailed picture of the 745 companies that have been approved for £770.8m worth of Convertible Loan Agreements since the scheme was launched on 20th May. There have been 1,243 applications in total since the scheme was launched. The data reveals, 42% of funding…

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Optimum Finance appoints new CEO

20th October 2020 Commercial Credit Management |

Invoice finance provider, Optimum Finance, has announced that fintech expert, Anthony Persse, has taken up the role of Chief Executive Officer (CEO), following the tragic death of its founder, Richard Pepler, earlier this year. Persse will fulfil Richard’s ambition for the company: to provide small and medium sized UK businesses (SMEs) with much-needed access to…

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Business lending hits £34.5bn in second quarter

7th October 2020 Commercial Credit Management |

Latest figures from UK Finance have indicated that gross lending of £34.5 billion in the second quarter was, in a single quarter, 50 percent more than the annual total in 2019. Figures also showed that ,more than a million businesses had applications approved for finance under Government schemes by the end of June. Un-utilised overdraft…

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Call for delay of pandemic debt until businesses become profitable

11th September 2020 Commercial Credit Management |

A study by Onward has found that around 20% of British businesses are only making enough profit to cover their debt interest payments. High levels of corporate debt built up by companies during the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed 4.3% of firms into technical insolvency, the report estimates. In the new research paper titled ‘Paying it…

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