Credit, Collections & Insolvency News
A combination of tailwinds to consumption and falling inflation should support modest positive growth in the UK over the remainder of this year and 2025 according to new analysis by KPMG. The prediction follows a technical recession in the second half of 2023, the UK economy has shown tentative signs of renewed momentum, with growth…
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More that half of business owners (54%) think the latest recession was an opportunity for entrepreneurs, whilst 51% think British entrepreneurship is about to boom. This rises to 57% of serial entrepreneurs, who have started multiple businesses in their time, according to new research from Charles Stanley. The research, has found that the opportunities driving…
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New research by Premium Credit has seen strong growth in the volume of funding and number of customers it supports through its tax and VAT funding proposition, which allows companies and business owners to spread the cost of their VAT, corporation tax and self-assessment tax payments. The research found that in 2023, the total amount…
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Higher interest rates will cost British businesses an additional £4.7 billion a year for the rest of the decade – and much of this cost will be pushed onto consumers, according to a new study by management consultancy Baringa. Baringa believes companies are experiencing the largest such hike in debt-related costs ever faced by the…
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A survey by online credit provider iwoca shows that SMEs believe big banks will further reduce funding for small businesses. The poll shows that nearly eight in ten brokers (77%) believe that high street banks are scaling back their willingness to fund small and medium-sized businesses, according to iwoca’s latest Q1 2024 SME Expert Index.…
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Latest analysis of applications for personal guarantee insurance in Q1 2024 by Purbeck Personal Guarantee Insurance has shown that there has been a 49% rise in business owners seeking Personal Guarantee Insurance (PGI) for a small business loan with most of these were for loans to simply keep their business running. Purbeck Personal Guarantee Insurance…
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The EY Item Club has forecasted bank-to-business lending will to grow just 0.5% (net) this year, before rising to 2.8% (net) in 2025, as lower borrowing costs boost demand The analysis says lending to UK businesses will increase by 0.5% this year, having contracted by 2.1% in 2023. Looking ahead, growth in business lending is…
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New research from Premium Credit has found that the number of SMEs using credit to pay for their insurance has increased in the past year with nearly one in five of them increasing the amount they borrow. The analysis showed that 55% of SMEs now use some form of credit to pay for insurance borrowing…
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Latest Begbies Traynor Red Flag Alert research, which has provided a snapshot of British corporate health for over 15 years, highlights the speed at which financial distress has accelerated over the last 12 months, with 554,554 UK businesses now in ‘significant’ financial distress – a 30.8% rise compared to Quarter 1 2023. More serious ‘critical’…
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The number of UK-listed companies issuing a profit warning over the last 12 months grew to 18.7%, 1% higher than 2008, at the peak of the Global Financial Crisis, according to EY-Parthenon’s latest report. In Q1 2024, the number of profit warnings issued by UK listed companies fell 7% year-on-year to 70 and dropped slightly…
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The number of overdue invoices in Scotland reached a 16-month high in February, according to new research from R3, the UK’s insolvency and restructuring trade body. R3’s analysis of data provided by Creditsafe shows that business in Scotland had 428,824 unpaid invoices on their books last month – the highest monthly total since October 2022’s…
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New research from independent SME funder, Bibby Financial Services (BFS) has revealed that interest rates and political uncertainty are holding back many businesses from investing in the long-term business growth the economy needs. The data showed that over half (53%) of SMEs are putting off making major investments until interest rates fall, while four in…
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Small firms are hampered by late payments and have dampened growth expectations for 2024, according to the Small Business Index (SBI) for Q4 2023, published in full by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB). The report is a temperature check of small firms’ sentiment and experiences at the end of last year, and analysis of…
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