The latest ‘Voice of Small Business Index’ from the FSB for Quarter 2 to June 2017, shows that only 14 per cent of small firms applied for external finance in the three months to June.
The FSB commented that the low figures are being driven by lower investment intentions and confidence levels on the back of Brexit and economic uncertainty.
The survey comes out on the back of the latest statistics from UK Finance (the finance industy’s trade body) which revealed that bank lending to businesses fell by £698m in July.
However, it’s not all doom and gloom.
Of the 14% of businesses which said they had applied for finance in the three months to June 2017, the share of those successfully getting a ‘yes’ stood at 74% in the quarter, up from the 71% in the same quarter a year ago.
This also compares very favourably to the 54% seen in Q2 2015. So, the more growth-focused businesses are getting what they want.
The survey also shows that the lending landscape continues to evolve with continued evidence of diversification away from traditional bank lending. Among small businesses that had applied for credit, the share applying for bank loans declined from 39% in Q2 2016 to 23% in Q2 2017.
Where are small businesses going for their finance needs?
The survey reveals that the proportion using asset-based finance, such as invoice financing, has doubled from 17% to 34%.
Our message is that if you are in growth mode, there are plenty of finance options out there.
Rob delivered a series of 3 workshops aimed at understanding how finance houses look at finance propositions with the aim for us as a team to deliver more of a bespoke offering to our customer base. The training was delivered to a mixture of staff who work with new businesses start-ups and existing established businesses across Mid & South West Wales. Rob delivered the training with an abundance of passion and has really helped my team look at financial propositions in a different light, many thanks again Rob and I look forward to work with you in the near future.
Hi Rob, it was so interesting and entertaining listening to you at the Kevin Green Wealth Coach Workshop in Reading this weekend! I didnt realise you can find Finance proposals such fun!. Brilliant tips! Thanks.
Rob kindly agreed to attend the recent Pontypridd RFC sponsors networking evening and delivered what can only be described as an excellent talk on 5 Tactics to Boost Your Business and Your Profits. He kept the audience engaged throughout and the feedback from everyone was excellent. Rob is very knowledgeable on business and finance and on top of that is a genuine nice guy. We hope to have him back at a future event and I have no hesitation in recommending Rob’s services.
I wanted to thank you for such an insightful, energetic, and entertaining talk at the Kevin Green Wealth event on securing funding and creating a successful plan. It was brilliantly executed and a pleasure to listen to and the ideas I’ve learned are definitely going to help me in going forward.
Further to your recent presentation at LEAD Wales just wanted to say it was very refreshing to see somebody talk passionately and positively about finance, very insightful!