The most recent Business Barometer survey from Close Brothers has shown around three out of four UK businesses believe funding initiatives offered by the government are not helping. Designed to help ease UK firms through the difficult economic times, the initiatives offer funding of between £1000 and £1million.
The discontent was felt particularly strongly in Scotland, where more than half of survey respondents answerring that they felt a total lack of support.
Close Brothers Invoice Finance CEO, David Thomson, spoke strongly on the issue. He discussed his worry at the lack of support felt by the majority of UK business, particularly in a climate where growth should be being encouraged. He went on to maintain that small to medium-sized businesses make up the economy’s foundations.
It is unclear whether the perceived lack of support stems from an issue with the funding initiatives, or whether the word of these initiatives simply hasn’t been spread.
With more than one in four small or medium size UK firms seeking to raise finance in the coming 12 months, it would be expected that demand for these initiatives would be high. Despite this, just 10% of businesses asked are considering doing so through invoice financing.
Invoice financing allows for businesses to get up to 95% of the amount of invoices to be received on the very same day in which they are issued. This would allow businesses to avoid having to wait for the invoice period, which often stands at 30, 60 or 90 days, and can sometimes be a full year.
Mr Thompson continued to discuss how vital it was to ensure that the viability of invoice financing was communicated to business in the UK, and spoke of its flexibility as a method of funding.
Almost 80 per cent of all UK firms questioned felt that initiatives like Project Merlin or Funding for Lending had not been of help to their business.
