BLOGS
HSBC to lend £8bn to small businesses
The UK's largest bank; HSBC; has set aside £8bn to increase it's lending to SMEs in the UK.
The new fund that has been set up will be distributed across 43 areas of the country including at least £400m to Northern powerhouse, Manchester.
In addition to this, there will be at least £400m allocated to Birmingham, recently receiving the accolade as the most enterprising city in the UK (outside London) and £400m will go to Scotland.
To make the loan more attractive to small businesses, fees on qualifying business loans between £1,000 and £300,000 will be waived or refunded through to the end of July with the aim of saving those that borrow hundreds of pounds.
Ian Stuart, Head of UK Commercial Banking said: “We want to make it as simple as we can for businesses to take their next step and that’s why we’ve taken out fees and charges. It’s open to any business, although we’re always keen to help out firms that manufacture here, as it’s important to the UK economy.”
Following a recent bout of negative media coverage, HSBC are currently reviewing whether they should move their main headquarters abroad. HSBC have around 75,000 small business customers and they say that they approve around 85% of business lending applications.
HSBC want to add emphasis on the services offered to their existing customers but also want to make everyone aware that this new loan scheme is open to everyone, whether they are a customer or not.
This move is in an attempt to help encourage further growth for the UK economy and increase the amount of small businesses that are being registered.
This is an area of interest that is shared here at IRIS. We believe that small business really is the driving force of a successful, vibrant economy and we are also helping businesses prepare for auto enrolment, the workplace pension reform.
Currently we have helped over 3,100 organisations assess over 570,000 employees using the IRIS AE Suite™. Find out more about the IRIS AE Suite™ and how it can help streamline your auto enrolment process, whether you have staged already or not.