Turning around the economic juggernaut means restoring SMEs’ confidence

Business Secretary Vince Cable warned at the LibDem conference that rebuilding the economy was going to be a long process requiring investment in business, in research and in training people in the skills that will be needed in the future.
We are also told, repeatedly, that SMEs are the primary engine for the country’s growth.
The trouble is that SMEs’ confidence has been knocked for six over the last five years, not least because despite innumerable Government initiatives they have time and again been refused lending by the banks. The most recent figures on the Funding for Lending scheme published earlier this month showed that lending to businesses and consumers had fallen by £2.3 billion since June 2012.
Now the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB ) has produced research showing just how beleaguered SMEs are feeling with more than 56% of those polled believing that the banks just do not care about them and more than a third reporting sharply increased bank fees over the last year. Very few of those polled knew that it is possible to appeal against a bank’s refusal of a loan application.
Worse still only 37% of those polled were aware of alternative sources of lending, such as crowd funding. 
K2 has a comprehensive, free, downloadable guide to sources of business finance available at http://www.k2finance.co.uk . The FSB has also launched a guide, How to Get a Bank Loan, which also covers appealing against refusal, switching banks and other finance options.