When the Recovery Loan Scheme was launched in April, the number of accredited lenders on the panel was limited. With the panel lenders now expanding, in our latest Business Finance Bulletin we review the new lenders focused on specific regions of the country and how they are broadening the Scheme’s reach.

Business is tough enough as it is but identifying and dealing with fraud can be an unwarranted distraction. HSBC has announced the launch of an app designed to flag new scams and keep you up to date with trends in fraud and cyber crime. Could this app help you keep away from the fraudsters?

To close this Bulletin, we review the latest figures from the Finance and Leasing Association which reveal that HP and Leasing deals are on the increase. Following the easing of restrictions, it seems that businesses are again beginning to re-invest.

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

If you prefer to read what’s featured in this Bulletin, here is a transcript.

Regionally-focused lenders are starting to offer finance under the Recovery Loan Scheme. HSBC launches fraud awareness app; and the latest asset finance figures shows that growth is back. All of this in the latest Business Finance Bulletin.

Recovery Loan Scheme Lenders

Let’s start this Bulletin with an update on the Recovery Loan Scheme.

First of all, a quick reminder of what the Recovery Loan Scheme is. Well, it’s the replacement for CBILs and Bounce Back Loans. It’s designed to give funding to businesses who are now looking for growth money, or recovery money.

Those lenders who have applied to go onto the panel and been successfully accredited by the British Business Bank will now be able to offer finance to those businesses who were looking to expand the game. When the scheme was launched at the beginning of April I mentioned that the panel was quite tight, quite small, but I said, towards the end of May, early June, we would see the panel beginning to expand. And that has now happened.

The good thing to see is that we’re starting to see more regionally-focused lenders being accredited under the scheme. These lenders are very much focused on certain areas of the country, which would benefit smaller businesses because they will be a much more interested in supporting smaller businesses in those areas.

Who are these lenders Who’ve been accredited to the Scheme?

We’ve got ART Business Loans, covering the West Midlands; BCRS covering the West Midlands as well; Enterprise Answers covering Cumbria, North Lancashire and the Yorkshire Dales; and GC Business Finance covering Greater Manchester.

So you can see the North of England is well represented. If you’re in those areas, hunt out those lenders, because they may be able to support you.

We’ve also seen other additions to the panel. The bigger lenders announced in the last two weeks are Starling bank and also Funding Circle. Funding circle, had about 27% of the CBIlS loan market last year, so no doubt they’re going to be a big player in this.

It’s great to see that the panel is now expanding. If you want to know if you can be eligible and want to know a little bit more about the Recovery Loan Scheme, we’re happy to have a chat. Just drop us an email info at business loan services.co.uk and we’ll happily chat with you about all of the options available to you.

HSBC Fraud and Cyber Awareness App

In the current business environment it can be hard enough to make money as it is, but even tougher if you lose that money to fraudsters. According to the National Crime Agency, businesses are losing up to £140 billion per year to fraud. HSBC have come up with a great idea; they are launching a free app to download called Fraud and Cyber Awareness app.This app will help you keep on top of the new trends in scams.

First, a quick look at the top three scams that HSBC have identified.

First of all, purchase scams where non-existent products are bought. That’s costing businesses on average £3,000 a year. Invoice scams, that’s costing businesses, £24,000 a year. And impersonation scams; that’s costing on average £6,500 per business.

So we can see there’s a lot of money to be lost here.

This app is a great addition to your toolkit to keep you aware of what’s going on in the world. When you download the app, the app will give you notifications of the latest scams of all the new trends going on. So it means that you can get on with doing your business and rely on the app then to keep you up to date and what to look out for.

If you’re interested in downloading this app, all you have to do is go to the HSBC website

A great addition to your toolkit to make sure you keep the money in your bank account, not the fraudsters bank.

Asset Finance and Business Growth

Good news coming out, confirming that business activity, starting to get back on track again.

The latest figures have been released from the Finance and Leasing Association, which shows the deal volumes of asset finance facilities are starting to increase again.

The members of the Finance and Leasing Association offer products such as HP and leasing and deal volumes for March have been released.

There’s been a 15% increase in the amount of business done in March, 2021 compared to March 2020. In the first quarter of this year, compared to the first quarter of 2020, the volumes were only up by 1% though, but it’s good to see volumes increasing in March overall.

However, on a 12 month basis to March the volumes over the whole 12 months is down by 20%, but at least we’re starting to see some traction coming back into the marketplace.

Where’s the deal volume coming from? Commercial vehicles, that’s leading the pace with a 20% increase in the amount of deals written in March and also business finance equipment, That’s up 14%. So it’s good to see the businesses are starting to reinvest again. I am sure that doing April and May, those figures would show further increases.

If you want to know more about asset finance and whether it could work for you and your business to get in touch with us, just drop us an email info at business loans services.co.uk. It is good to see the UK economy getting back on track

Wrap Up

That’s it for another Bulletin. As ever, I hope you enjoyed watching it and if you did, please, don’t forget to give it a like, a share and subscribe to this channel. Thanks very much and I Look forward to the next time. In the meantime, have a successful and profitable week.

Kickstarting this week’s Business Finance Bulletin, the Recovery Loan Scheme has had a quiet start since its launch but the number of lenders on the panel is now slowly increasing. We look at the latest additions and what continues to hold the Scheme back.

The Start Up Loan Company is encouraging younger people to think about becoming entrepreneurs. This is off the back of an analysis of the 80,000 loans they have distributed which reveals a large portion have gone to new business owners in the 18 to 24 year old age range. How could the loan assist you?

To close, a look at findings from the latest Lloyds Bank UK Recovery Tracker, which uncovers that the UK’s key sectors are back on the path to growth.

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

If you prefer to read about this week’s news, here’s a transcript of the content…

More lenders offering the Recovery Loan Scheme; young and budding entrepreneurs encouraged to look at a startup loan; and key UK sectors of back on the growth trajectory. All of this in the latest Business Finance Bulletin.

Recovery Loan Scheme Lenders

The Recovery Loan Scheme launched on the 6th of April, and there hasn’t been an awful lot of noise in the marketplace as regards how successful or otherwise that it’s been. Before we take a look at why this is, let’s remind ourselves quickly of the key features of the Recovery Loan Scheme.

It’s designed to help promote growth, so if you’re looking for additional working capital or cash; buying plants and equipment and machinery, then this is the loan for you. If you don’t want to provide a personal guarantee, you can borrow up to a maximum of £250,000 with no personal guarantee. If you’d want to borrow more than your guarantee would be limited to 20% of the balance.

The interest rate is capped at 14.99% and in terms of the loan term, it depends on the type of product you take be it would be a maximum of three years or a maximum of six years.

Demand at the moment, is still a bit muted and it’s all down to the makeup of the panel. During the early days, it was really only the high street banks and a few other niche players but over the last couple of weeks, we’ve started now to see lenders coming on to the scheme, having applied for and being accredited by the British Business Bank.

The panel, as I record this, now stands at 27 lenders and the recent additions include Triodos bank, Atom bank and Synergy bank, so we’re starting to see some activity coming through.

However, one thing to bear in mind is that the appetite to support is going to be quite varied. The high street banks, well they’re probably going to be quite tough. The other ones are focusing on particular products, but also some of them are being very careful by saying it’s open for only existing customers.

Some of them are saying you have to provide security, which is a bit strange considering the government’s giving an 80% guarantee; a bit bizarre.

So you can see the panel is quite tight and there’s going to be reasons for you to really look closely at each of them to see whether it fits your needs.

If you want to know which lenders are on the panel, just go along to the British Business Bank website, which is www.british-business-bank.co.uk.

Alternatively, of course continue watching this Bulletin and periodically I’ll be telling you about all the new lenders who are coming on the Scheme.

Start Up Loans for Young Entrepreneurs

In the pandemic, one sector of society that has been hit particularly badly are the millennials. These are the 18 to 24 year olds who’ve been hit hardest when it comes to unemployment with them taking the brunt of job losses.

Well, the Start Up Loan Companies, is launching a campaign to encourage these 18 to 24 year olds to not necessarily think about getting a job, but perhaps to think about starting a business.

If you are starting a business, of course, some startup capital will always help and that’s where the Start Up Loan Company comes in.

Since it’s been going since 2012, of the 80,000 successful loan applicants they had, 54% of them have been unemployed and of all of that 54%, 31% of them were 18 to 24 year olds.

Now, interestingly, over the last year, the number of people applying for this in the 18 to 24 year old range range has doubled compared to 2019. So we can see there’s a lot of interest from young people in terms of starting a business. And this is what the startup loan company is hoping to tap into.

If you are in that age bracket and you’re looking to start a business, check out startup loans, it’s a great product.

If there’s four of you, each of you can have a maximum of £25,000, or if you’re on your own, it’s a maximum of £25,000. The interest rate is 6% and you can pay the loan back over five years. Great interest rates and a great loan term.

If you want to know more, just go along to their website, which is www.startuploans.co.uk

Back on the Growth Path

According to the latest Lloyd’s bank UK Recovery Tracker, all the key sectors in the UK economy are starting to look at growth again.

Their latest report for April highlights that of the 14 sectors they regularly monitor, all 14 of them reported positive growth output in the month of April. Now that is the first time since August, 2018, that all 14 sectors have recorded growth. In March it was 11 sectors recording growth. So you can see there’s now been a further increase, which is great news for the economy.

Which sectors are leading the pack? Well it’s manufacturing and also technology. Those are the ones that grew by the largest amount.

However, what is even more encouraging that 13 of the 14 sectors though have reported growth plans over the next 12 months, which is going to exceed that recorded by their global counterparts. So it does appear that UK entrepreneurs and business owners are feeling a lot more optimistic and a lot more bullish than their overseas competitors.

Overall really good news for the UK economy, which means that hopefully we’ll finish 2021 with some very strong figures.

Wrap Up

Well, that’s it for another Bulletin and as ever, I hope you enjoyed watching it, and if you did please don’t forget to subscribe to this channel or hit the like and share button.

I look forward to being with you again, next time.