A NEW bank called Shawbrook Bank has been launched to boost lending to business.
There’s a new bank in in town. Shawbrook bank, a new UK bank apparently has around £250million to lend small and medium-sized businesses (SME) in the coming year.
They’re hoping to gain some major traction in this uncompetitive banking sector since the old guard are weighed down by complaints of the “lack of lending” and the “cost of credit”.
Chief executive Owen Woodley, who spent 20 years at Barclays, said:
“Having access to the right finance at the right time is vital.”
The new firm has been busy conducting it’s own market research and found that nine out of 10 smaller firms believe banks fail to use common sense when assessing loan applications.
In essence, half of those surveyed felt that there was far too much red tape involved in obtaining a loan, while only 6% felt that banks were transparent in their dealings with both new and existing business clients.
To gain competitive advantage, Shawbrook will employ individual brokers and financial advisers rather than creating a static branch network which should cut costs at the outset. They’ve hired Sir George Mathewson, who masterminded the £20billion takeover of NatWest by Royal Bank of Scotland, as chairman.
Is this good news for SME’s? We’ll have to wait and see. £250million is a lot to invest. Let’s just see if they’re really willing to share the love between several small businesses. Our guess is, they’ll be fairly strategic where the investment goes….
