The UK’s largest commercial broking body has launched an online platform offering finance to small businesses “that may have been turned away elsewhere”.
The National Association of Commercial Finance Brokers (NACFB) has set up a portal, called findsmefinance, which allows firms to filter their funding requirements by loan size, type and location. They are then presented with a targeted range of the association’s brokers to approach.
The body said the platform connect firms to commercial brokers “with the aim of offering an alternative route to finance for businesses that may have been turned away elsewhere”.
The launch comes a day after it was revealed that bank stock lending to small businesses in 2018 was £166bn, a decline in real terms compared to £165bn achieved in 2017, according government development lender, the British Business Bank, in its Small Business Finance Markets 2018/19 report.
NACFB chief executive officer Graham Toy (pictured) said: “In an era when some lenders are scaling back their face-to-face operations, the modern finance broker has inherited and enhanced the role of the local bank manager. Brokers are able to provide advice and products from a wide range of UK funders.”
The trade body added that the platform is geared up to handle 5,000 searches from small business in its first year.
