Kicking off series 3 is Paul Wilson!
Paul is the Policy Director at the Federation of Small Businesses. The FSB aims to provide a powerful voice for the UK’s 5.5 million small businesses and the self-employed. Paul’s policy team publishes regular reports on a range of topics, their recent report ‘Credit Where Credit's Due’ is all about small businesses and their need for external finance to grow.
59% of small businesses have applied for external finance over the last five years, and only 37% of those firms found the application for traditional loans easy…
There has been an alarming reduction of nearly half a million small businesses over the last two years. Given recent economic turmoil, there is a risk of another credit crunch where the UK financial market may begin squeezing lending to small businesses, reminiscent of the period following the 2008 financial crash.
Small businesses sit at the heart of their communities and external finance needs to remain as accessible as possible to help firms in these difficult times.
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