Firms ‘unable to access loans to stay afloat’

Posted 21/08/2012

Companies in East Anglia could be forced to ask family and friends to lend them money in order to allow them to keep going.According to new research by Bibby Financial Services, one in three (32 per cent) of respondents to a poll by the company have been unable to secure finance in the past 12 months, with only nine per cent receiving the amount of funding they applied for.Of the firms to have applied for funding, close to one in five (19 per cent) were unable to raise what they described as the necessary capital to invest in their business.Edward Winterton, commercial director at Bibby Financial Services, stated the results of the study show the gap between the supply of available funding and the demand for money.”The results are further proof that businesses desperately require greater access to finance and that to date, schemes introduced by the government to address the issue have failed to work,” he said.A new programme was recently launched by the coalition and the Bank of England – the Funding for Lending Scheme – to alleviate business loans issues.