Access to finance still a problem for small businesses

The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) have released figures that show  despite the Bank of England putting £200 million into the UK's economy to  stimulate access to lending, finance still remains a serious problem for small businesses.

The monthly business survey carried out by the BCC shows that 33% of companies have reported that accessing finance has become more difficult over the past 3 months. When compared to June this year only 20% of businesses reported that access to finance had become worse.

Director General of the BCC, David Frost, has said that despite these findings, the biggest issue faced by UK business is the lack of demand for products and services. This is illustrated in the fact that 64% of the 400 businesses questioned said that their biggest barrier to growth over the next 12 months was due to a lack of customer demand.

Having taken that into consideration Frost went on to add:

“It is clear that the huge sums that have been injected into the financial system by quantitative easing are still not reaching small and medium-sized businesses in anything like the scale required for business to invest for future success.”

He went on to say that the pre-budget report at the begining of December should include measures that encourage companies to invest and improve consumer confidence.

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