Barclays launches instant business lending service

Business Instant Lending will offer mobile loans for businesses, making SME loans and overdrafts instantly available through the Barclays Mobile Banking app and reducing the time taken to get a loan from a matter of weeks to under an hour.

Though almost a third of British SMEs are not planning on applying for a loan despite acknowledging it would boost their business, Barclays research shows that 64% of SMEs’ turnover would increase if they successfully secured the right loan, which could generate nearly 200,000 new jobs for Britain over the next four years.

Barclays says access to instant loans and overdrafts could deliver an economic boost of 106 new jobs per day (+194,000 jobs by 2021) and £34.25bn of economic growth by 2021.

Its research also found that one in five SMEs believe Brexit is impacting their current or future funding requirements. Of those, the most common reasons cited were a need to start exporting to new, non-EU markets, Brexit economic uncertainty and a need to replace current employees who are EU citizens.

A quarter (24%) of SMEs believe it will be harder to secure a loan in 2017, with Brexit causing economic/political uncertainty and global economic uncertainty cited as the main reasons.
 
Ian Rand, CEO of Business Banking at Barclays, said: “We recognise that some businesses are cautious about applying for a loan, whilst many more simply do not have the time.

“Our new, pre-assessed lending gives customers the ability to see how much they could borrow on their mobile and we can get that money to them more quickly than ever so they can invest in and focus on running their businesses.

“Since the EU Referendum our appetite for lending has not diminished and we continue to lend to an SME in the UK every four minutes. We want to help SMEs be confident in their future business plans, including looking at new opportunities to export. We are particularly determined to reach out to those businesses who believe lending will be more difficult next year to see where we can help.”