Business owners largely unaware about government lending schemes

Business owners remain largely unaware about the government lending schemes available to them, according to a new poll.

A survey conducted by invoice factoring company Touch Financial has suggested that just 42 per cent of small business owners were aware of the Funding for Lending scheme, whilst a similar percentage had heard of the Enterprise Guarantee Scheme.

According to freshbusinessthinking.com, these figures dropped even lower when it came to initiatives like the Regional Growth Fund (19 per cent), the British Business Bank (ten per cent) and Supply Chain Finance (two per cent).

These are all options which those looking to start a franchise may want to consider when seeking additional finance.

Simon Carter, director of Touch Financial, was full of praise for the government for launching these schemes.

However, in an interview with prnewswire.co.uk, he suggested that more should be done to promote these and other forms of business finance.

He said: “Why does the Government continue to launch new schemes rather than promoting viable alternatives such as factoring and invoice finance which already exist, and which are already part of the banking infrastructure?

“The Government should stop obsessing with headlines and focus its energy and investment on promoting methods of funding that already exist, and which are already proven to help thousands of small businesses each year.”