In this episode of the Business Finance Bulletin finally an edition packed with good news.

We take a look at the latest figures from the Bank of England which show an annual growth in bank lending to small businesses (but not such good news for the larger businesses though).

In the crowdfunding world an update from the Peer to Peer Finance Association confirms that crowdfunding had another strong year in 2105 in terms of money lent, and an increase in the number of private investors and borrowers.

Staying with crowdfunding, there’s positive news from Assetz Capital which has announced a significant pot of new money to lend out to SMEs and details of the launch of a new equity crowdfunding platform, GrowthDeck.

And to round-off the crowdfunding theme of this edition, a clip from a seminar in which Rob Warlow from Business Loan Services outlines the history of crowdfunding.

If you would prefer to listen to the podcast version you can click below or download to listen to later via our Soundcloud, Stitcher or itunes channel.

The latest update from the Peer to Peer Finance Association shows that crowdfunding continues its stellar growth. Figures for the 1st Quarter of 2015 reveal that the industry lent out £459,000,000, compared to £346,000,000 in the 4th Quarter of 2014

That’s an increase of 33%… growth rates the banks can’t touch!

But let’s look closer at what else is happening.

Let’s start with the lenders… the people who are handing over their cash. At the end of Quarter 4 2014 there were 105,101 lenders. At the end of March 2015 there were 111,255

That’s an increase of 6%.

What about the borrowers?

At the end of Quarter 4 2014 there were 139,749 borrowers and at the end of March 2015 there were 159,083.
That’s an increase of 14%

It’s clear that more businesses and individuals are seeing the benefits of crowdfunding.

If you want to know how you can access finance for you business via crowdfunding you can find more information on our crowdfunding page.

In the latest Business Finance Bulletin Rob Warlow looks at activity in the alternative sources of finance market. There’s news of crowdlender ReBuildingSociety joining the Alternative Business Funding platform and how a survey has revealed that business owners are finding it hard to differentiate between banks.

Rob also reports on the growth in the total amount lent by alternative finance providers and crowdfunding platforms with the figures showing strong performance.

And in the Business Finance Tip of the Week a live from a live seminar Rob delivered recently for the ACCA in South Wales on alternative sources of finance. In this clip Rob talks about one key reason why bank would say no to a loan request.

You can also listen to this week’s episode by clicking below or downloading it to your phone.