Business West has welcomed the Government’s announcement of £300m through the Business Bank to boost lending to small and medium-sized businesses.
Phil Smith, Managing Director of the organization, which runs the chambers of commerce in Bristol, Bath and G
loucestershire and the Bristol and Swindon Initiatives, said: “To help kick start our economy and secure the jobs growth we need, SMEs require funding.
“The launch of the Business Bank is a positive move in the right direction and we welcome the government’s commitment to providing support for SME's alongside private sector investment. Raising money for business is always a difficult task and anything that makes it easier to do this is to be welcomed. However, this is only the start of help for small businesses, not the end goal.
“For the bank to have true and lasting impact it requires both vision and scale and the money needs to move through it at a rate that will be of assistance to SMEs, rather than getting bogged down in red tape. We urge ministers and the Bank of England to ‘think bigger’ when it comes to the bank’s investment capital, to ensure the bank can operate independently of Whitehall, and allow to it to work directly with dynamic new and growing companies as soon as possible, and for the long term. It is also important that it maintains its focus on lending money as a priority, rather than wider SME business support issues – access to finance is a big priority for small business and one that regularly gets reported as a major barrier to growth.”
He said Business West believed this was an important part of the solution for SMEs, but there were others while much more also needed to be done alongside this initiative to promote alternative sources of finance, so small businesses can select the most appropriate source of funding for them from a range of options, including crowd funding.
“Then we will see more SMEs providing the growth we so desperately need to support our economy recovery both locally and nationally,” he said.
