Partner Article

Make a financial New Year’s resolution

Small and medium sized businesses in the UK are being urged to step out from the shadows when it comes to organising their company finances in 2016.

Head of Businesscomparison.com, Philip Brennan, has thrown down the gauntlet to our country’s business owners. The former Moneysupermarket.com and Bank of America employee has set up a price comparison website to make accessing alternative funding easier for the 5.4 million small and medium sized businesses in the UK. He says,

“All too often owners of small businesses are blindly walking into deals, often suggested by their accountants, that aren’t necessarily the best product for them. Consumer culture has shifted and we take advantage of price comparison sites to look for deals on things like electricity, insurance and mortgages. Now it’s time for the culture to change in the business community when it comes to selecting business insurance, commercial mortgages, invoice financing and basic bank accounts. The deals are out there so it’s up to business owners to change how they operate and find them. I set up Businesscomparison.com for that very purpose.”

A huge 80% of funding lent to SMEs has only come from four UK banks according to research by GLI Finance and Cambridge University centre for Alternative Finance. 56% of the SMEs surveyed as part of the research said that they were not familiar with an alternative form of finance despite there being many on the market. Add to that the recent government investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) into banking which recommended that a price comparison site for small businesses is needed and there is a massive case for business leaders to start to shop around.

Philip Brennan recently met with MP Antoinette Sandbach to discuss the findings of the CMA. The MP, who won her constituency seat in 2015, pledged to write to cabinet Minister for Small Business, Anna Southby, to make her aware of the innovative approach taken by Businesscomparison.com. Phillip Brennan comments,

“The CMA’s conclusions match our own observations about the financial marketplace for SMEs which is exactly why we set up. We need transparency not just in banking but across all financial products such as insurance, energy, mortgages and it is vital to encourage businesses to compare in the same way that has become commonplace in many consumer markets. We’re now calling for greater awareness of the need for our country’s businesses to shop around and get the best deal possible on bank accounts and financial products.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Lucy Liddiard .