Look At Us, We’re Lending

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Bank Lending

So what is the real state of affairs with bank lending to small businesses? According to Lloyds Bank small businesses don’t want to borrow whilst the Co-operative Bank have said they’ve more than doubled lending to SMEs. Has there been a swing away from the larger bank lenders to the smaller, potentially more ethical, banking institutions? Or are we just suffering from the effects of PR spin? The Lloyds figures state there has been a 1% drop in lending over the past year, whilst the co-op’s figures covers three years and there is no mention of whether their figures are “like for like” as perhaps should be the case if you read their 2009 report:

“Customer loans have increased significantly to £34.0bn (2008: £10.2bn) as a result of the merger. On a like-for-like basis customer assets have remained stable in difficult markets maintaining our support for UK consumers and business while retaining our strong liquidity and capital position.”

What Can You Learn?

So what has this debate about bank lending to small businesses taught us? Well every financial institution will big their offerings up and the press have an agenda to say we’re “doomed” but an important aspect to consider is actually talk to people. Talk to your peers about which sources of funding they use, seek testimonials and actually get to know the people you’ll be working with or indebted to.

But, perhaps the news agenda is too focused on debt finance. Stuart Fraser, Chairman on the Policy and Resources Committee of the City of London Corporation has it spot on when he wrote to the FT:

Research has shown that we need to focus much more attention on increasing access to alternative investment streams such as private equity markets, business angels and venture capital funds.

Free Funding Clinics For Your Clients?

Many of you will know about the Business Funding Clinics we run up and down the country – and abroad. Well, they’ve been such a great success that more and more organisations have approached us to run them at their premises to help their clients. If you’re interested in doing the same then just contact us.

Angels Den Asia

We’re also in the final stages of launching Angels Den in Hong Kong, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur so if you’re either seeking angel investment or a business angel there, drop our Asia Director, Andrew Dean an email on andrew@angelsden.com?

Also please note the date for the Singapore event has been changed to 16th September.

Events In The UK

But if you’re in the UK don’t forget our local events. On September 9th we have a SpeedFunding event in London, and various Free Funding Clinics in London, Scotland and the North over the next month.

Free Business Plan Reviews

But if you can’t make it to a Funding Clinic then why not send your business plan to us and we’ll review it and give you constructive feedback to help increase your chances of gaining angel funding. Simply email it to wings@angelsden.co.uk and we’ll treat it with the utmost confidentiality.