geo/united-kingdom
Washington, D.C., March 3rd, 2020 – Banking Circle has become the newest member of the SME Finance Forum, a global membership network that brings together financial institutions, technology companies, and development finance institutions to share knowledge, spur innovation, and promote the growth of SMEs.
Washington, D.C., November 13, 2019 – Fractal Labs has joined the SME Finance Forum, a global membership network that brings together financial institutions, technology companies, and development finance institutions to share knowledge, spur innovation, and promote the growth of SMEs.
We are proud to be a partner of RFIx Receivables Finance International Convention 2020 in London. Join us and industry experts, government agencies, financiers alternative finance platforms, banks, insurers, and corporates in London for the 20th anniversary of the Convention!
RFIx is a fantastic opportunity for you to grow your network with professionals from across the global receivables finance market, including:
Folk2Folk, a peer-to-peer lender for local, rural and SME businesses, has now surpassed £300 million in lending, according to a company release. Folk2Folk notes that it is the 3rd largest P2P Lender to UK businesses in terms of money lent.
News via CrowdFundInsider.com
#smefinance #smelending #p2p
Revolut has also announced a partnership with small business cloud accounting company Xero, enabling joint customers to integrate expense data between the two platforms for seamless reconciliation in the UK.
News via Pymnts.
Four fintechs have been awarded £40m between them to address the £10bn funding gap caused by the lack of small business finance in the UK. The £40m is part of a £775m programme funded by Royal Bank of Scotland as a condition of its bailout during the financial crisis.A total of £425m will be given in cash grants to rival business banks and financial technology companies to support small businesses.
In this EY has outlined a number of questions they believe firms need to ask themselves with respect to how they can really help the SME community, considering how they can provide additional insight, tools and services that will best serve their customers. Firms that answer these questions the best are likely to come out on top, not just in this funding contest, but in the ongoing battle of attracting and retaining SME customers.
According to a survey of 2000 directors at UK SMEs, almost half of UK SMEs (49%) would seek financing from non-bank lenders as they begin to better understand the business models of companies in this space, including fintechs.
A Leeds-based fintech known as Rebuilding Society, founder Dan Rajkumar, recently said: “When you are a business and you borrow from a bank that agreement is with the bank and it can call it in at any time. They also take quite a high margin with low savings rates,” explained Rajkumar. “I created Rebuilding Society to give everyone a better deal.”
A new study seen exclusively by Yahoo Finance UK shows how difficult it is for women in Britain, compared to men, to start their own business.
Yahoo says, men are three times more likely than women to have over £250,000 ($320,479) of investible assets – essential capital for getting a business started – according to private equity house IW Capital. Their 2018 Women’s Entrepreneurship Index has also shown how men are 52% more likely than women to have more start-up capital than their parents.
AltFi reports that SME Finance Forum member BNP Paribas Asset Management has completed its first UK loan on its new SME lending platform.
The loan, a six year senior unsecured amortising loan, was made to a specialist recruitment services company based in the West of England.
BNPP AM says investing in its SME alternative financing offers its client base a "differentiated and unique access" to SME lending as an asset class. It also has a warehousing capacity that enables it to immediately start granting loans, with the typical loan size being between £500,000 and £5m.
