Credit, Collections & Insolvency News
The percentage of UK small businesses predicting growth has hit its lowest level in two years (31%) according to Novuna Business Finance. The latest figures suggest a slight drop in growth predictions on last quarter (34%) and a bigger fall on this time last year (37%) – a time when the country was still coping…
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Business loans are set to fall by 3.5% in 2023 due to a deteriorating economic outlook according to new research by EY ITEM Club. The research found that the figures where a contrast to 2021, when many UK businesses focused on paying back pandemic debt, whilst this year has seen a return to growth in…
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New figures released by the Finance & Leasing Association (FLA) show that total asset finance new business (primarily leasing and hire purchase) grew in August 2022 by 10% compared with the same month in 2021. In the first eight months of 2022, new business was 3% higher than in the same period in 2021. The…
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Financial professionals estimate over £295,000 is lost to invoice fraud per business, every year in the UK, whilst one in five (20%) finance professionals are unaware or unable to even estimate the cost of invoice fraud to their business according to research by Medius. The research found that with mounting pressure on finance teams, they…
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Hampshire Trust Bank (HTB) has announced the appointment of Uliana Kuzmis as Deputy Managing Director within its Development Finance division. Kuzmis joins HTB following seven years at Octopus Group, where she was most recently Head of Development Finance. She will report into Alex Upton, Managing Director, Development Finance. Alex Upton, Managing Director – Development Finance, Hampshire Trust Bank, said “When building…
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The British Business Bank (BBB), which helps small businesses access finance, has warned that smaller firms face a challenging few years on the back of the economic downturn. The BBB said lending to start-ups and the smallest businesses could be particularly vulnerable to the impact of economic uncertainty as they often do not have collateral.…
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New analysis by UK Finance has indicated that lending to small and medium-sized enterprises SMEs has remained stable in the first half of 2022. The figures shows that gross lending to SMEs edged up higher to £5.1 billion in the second quarter of 2022, with demand for overdraft facilities remaining stable following a rise in…
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More than a quarter (26%) of business leaders say they have had difficulties accessing finance from main banks, whilst over a third (38%) say that banks don’t understand their business needs and two in five (41%) think banks’ lending policies haven’t kept pace with modern business needs according to new research by Sonovate. The research…
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New figures released by the Finance & Leasing Association (FLA) show that total asset finance new business (primarily leasing and hire purchase) grew in July 2022 by 2% compared with the same month in 2021. In the first seven months of 2022, new business remained 2% higher than in the same period in 2021. The…
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NatWest is set to refund hundreds of business customers after it wrongfully forced them to open current accounts to secure a loan, which cost money. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has found that NatWest breached banking rules by forcing business customers to open a business current account, which incurs fees, in order to secure…
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The value of overdrafts used by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has grown 18% from £8.3 billion in May 2021 to £9.8 billion in May 2022 as the financial stress in small businesses rises according to research by UHY Hacker Young. UHY Hacker Young says that the rise in overdraft use is concerning as overdrafts…
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New figures released by the Finance & Leasing Association (FLA) show that total asset finance new business (primarily leasing and hire purchase) grew in June 2022 by 2% compared with the same month in 2021. In the first half of 2022, new business was also 2% higher than in the same period in 2021. The…
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Small business owners are concerned about the possibility of a recession, according to iwoca’s latest quarterly SME Expert Index. With both the cost of living and of doing business climbing, over three quarters of brokers surveyed (77%) say their small business clients are worried about the possibility of a recession. By contrast, fewer than 7%…
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