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We were fascinated to read recently about the design of the new £5 note, which will be issued by the Bank of England in September. In May 2017 paper £5 notes will cease to be legal tender and will no longer be accepted by shops and banks.

We were interested to read the results of recent research by Hitachi Capital Finance, which analysed data from its small business customers. It revealed how much stress small business owners are under, and outlined some of the reasons for this.

Parliament is once again officially open for business and the latest Queen’s Speech has outlined the priorities of the government for the coming session. But what are the plans for small businesses?

Let’s look at two young people who have both made their small business into a huge success.

London has chosen and we have our new mayor. Sadiq Khan, Labour’s candidate and London’s first Muslim mayor – and self-titled “mayor for all Londoners”. But what impact will he have on small businesses in London?

Asset-based finance is the raising of funds using your existing assets as security. Assets can include invoice finance, – where business secure funding against the value of unpaid invoices – stock, equipment and property. According to the Asset-Based Finance Association ABFA, asset-based funding in the UK breaks down into roughly around 80% invoice finance and 20% the rest.

For a small business owner the landscape of business funding can be bewildering. Not only that, but there is still an unacceptably high rate of rejection for those small business trying to get a business loan. This is despite a supposed improved availability of credit: The British Business Bank (BBB) recently reported an increase in bank loans of £1.6bn from 2014 to 2015.

Taxation is very much in the news at the moment! The so-called Panama Papers scandal has – via leaked documents – revealed years of money laundering, sanction dodging and tax evasion by rich and powerful clients of one of the world’s most secretive companies, a Panamanian law firm called Mossack Fonseca. Clients include current and […]

So now the dust has settled on the March budget, what impact – if any – will it have on small businesses? Hailed by George Osborne as his long term economic plan, he described it as “‘a budget that backs businesses’”. The full measures are outlined on the Gov UK website but let’s take a […]

Do you sometimes wonder if banks are on the same planet as the rest of us?! Small business owners work every hour they can and yet when they need to do essential banking that requires a visit to a branch the hours are usually 9:00-17:00! Yet recent research by Funding Xchange has found that 42% […]