UK companies with business bank accounts need more support from lender, says Forum of Private Business chief executive, Phil Orford.
Company owners, business leaders, and bank representatives recently attended Manchester’s Better Business Finance event at which Mr Orford was the keynote speaker. The FPB chief executive remarked in his address that it was high time that there was an acknowledgement that the failings of the past must be put aside in order to ensure businesses gain proper access to the venture capital they need to continue to patch up the economy.
Mr Orford struck a serious note, commenting that companies and business loan providers need to either enable the country’s economic recovery or risk its disablement. Banks and businesses need to critically re-evaluate their relationships and accept that the time when working capital was easy to secure are long gone, he added.
Mr Orford urged smaller companies to improve their credit rating my implementing a range of measures towards doing so. This is because business owners need to objectively approach potential lenders in a more objective manner in regards to appearances, he also said.
The measures the chief executive described include managing not only business credit ratings but personal ones, preparing business plans in a methodical manner, and offering business assets as security for a loan.
Mr Orford spoke directly to lenders, saying that they were duty bound to guide small businesses through the process of securing credit due to the vast infrastructures and resources at banks’ disposal. Remarking that lenders deal directly with the majority of small firms, financial services providers have the resources needed to make a difference to the smallest of businesses who almost universally lack the wherewithal themselves.