ABC, the new British bank, is helping thousands of small businesses across the UK cut the cost of cash flow finance, with the launch of the Aldermore Business Confidence (ABC) fixed fee factoring package.
ABC enables small businesses with a turnover of up to £500,000 to immediately access and utilise cash tied-up in unpaid invoices.
There are no set-up or administration charges and both the servicing and discounting fees are fixed for two years from inception.
CHAPS payments and online access to ABC’s factoring system are included in the monthly fee and ABC customers also qualify for a free copy of Sage’s Instant Access Account software.
Ian Wilkins, Group Managing Director of Commercial Finance at ABC: “The objective behind the launch of ABC is to provide small businesses with a completely transparent, fixed fee finance package to help boost their cash flow and give them greater budgetary control.
“A number of surveys have indicated that many small business owners are confused about the cost of invoice finance facilities, making them unwilling to investigate further the benefits of factoring.
This new package takes away all the concerns regarding fees and charges, as they are included in the simple fixed monthly fee.”
42% of businesses have indicated* that their need for finance has increased over the past 3 months and yet a massive 89% are concerned that arrangement fees are too high.
Wilkins continues: “Although the Project Merlin banks are pledging to lend £190bn this year, big businesses will be the overwhelming winners with £114bn bypassing SMEs altogether.
ABC is targeted at the smallest businesses that often struggle to secure competitively priced finance and are put-off by hefty fees. We believe this package will make a big difference to thousands of small firms.”
Data produced by the Federation of Small Businesses confirms that the UK’s 4.8 million small and medium sized firms employ 22.8 million people, which accounts for 59.8% of the private sector workforce.
Small firms also account for 49% of the UK turnover and 64% of all commercial innovations. ABC has lent £360 million to small and medium sized businesses and has total assets of more than £1 billion.
The bank has 8 regional business offices, providing invoice finance, asset finance and commercial mortgage facilities to more than 9,500 business customers.
