Free guide to get bank support

The guide, entitled Get your bank manager to say ‘YES’!, has been produced by the Forum of Private Business (FPB) in response to mounting concerns over bank lending to smaller firms.

Almost 80% of FPB members recently reported that the terms and conditions of lending have got worse over the past year.

And the issue hit the headlines last week when Government enterprise czar and Apprentice star Lord Alan Sugar claimed some small business owners had only themselves to blame for their inability to access finance.

Speaking at an event in Manchester, Lord Sugar said he understood the banks’ reluctance to lend to many smaller firms and put much of the problem down to inflated expectations created by easy access to credit over the past decade.

The FPB took issue with many aspects of Lord Sugar’s views and believes thousands of viable, well-managed SMEs are unfairly being denied loans.

Get your bank manager to say ‘YES’! is intended to help address this problem and give small businesses the best possible chances of securing a loan.

Electronic copies of Get your bank manager to say ‘YES’! will be available free of charge to small businesses through the FPB’s website. It is the first in a series of authoritative BusinessBuilder guides which the FPB is producing in order to help smaller firms to prosper