Thursday, November 24, 2011 3:59:00 PM
Asset finance has been playing an increasingly important role in funding business expansion. In the past 12 months a total of £20.9bn of asset finance has been supplied, up by 8% on the previous year.
The chief executive of Syscap said "The eurozone crisis has sent the average business overdraft rates shooting up to their highest level in nearly 3 years, despite stability in the central bank rate. Ths is causing real pain for small businesses, whose overdraft rates are always much higher than the overall average, and who can be paying up to 3% on top of that in additional charges. Unfortunately, with banks still failing to make other types of loan more widely available, an expensive overdraft is frequently the only form of business borrowing available from high street lenders. As a result it's hardly surprising that small businesses are looking to leasing and other forms of asset finance for more sustainable alternatives to funding investment."