Paul Atkins is Experienced in helping SME business's with their funding requirements and able to offer real, viable alternatives to High st funders.
The SME Maze
Post-recession and Banking crisis there has been a mis-held belief that no-one is lending money to the SME sector. This couldn’t be further from the truth and the crisis has only seen the emergence of a myriad of smaller niche funders to add to the list of specialist lenders who were already in existence. What could be true is that the days of ’very’ cheap money are long gone with supply and demand coupled with risk dictating rates and terms. Did someone say ‘old fashioned banking’? That said, in some of the very competitive sectors – factoring and invoice discounting being one - there are some very attractive deals to be done if the fit is right.
I did a quick check whilst writing this article and there are in excess of 30 crowd funding organisations lending in some way, shape or form to UK SME’s and about 50 members of the Asset Based Finance Association (Factors Discounters and Asset Finance Companies). There are many more who are not members too. Add to this an excess of 40 Community Development Finance Association Companies and various specialist trade finance and niche lenders and we haven’t even looked at the significant property finance market which covers bridging, development, investment and owner occupied property finance.
From this two things become clear:
- There is a substantial supply of money for SME’s from a variety of sources for all types of scenarios.
- The SME lending market outside of the Banks is somewhat confusing
As specialist Business Finance Brokers for the SME market, it is our job to know and understand who these lenders are and what their sweet spots are. We cannot claim to know each and every one of these lenders but we certainly know the main players and often at senior level or through approved sponsorship agreements.
Through our experience and contacts and knowledge of this market we believe that we can save company owners and advisers considerable time and money when looking to raise or review Business Finance and take great pleasure in advising people through this increasingly complex maze.
For more information please see www.sourcebusinessfinance.co.uk or call Paul Atkins on 07739 990649.