The Banking Cabal And You

Written on January 26, 2011 – 6:18 pm | by Michael Harris

You don’t have to be a ‘trickle-down economics’ zealot to see the importance of supporting entrepreneurial spirit in vanquishing our current economic malaise. The current efforts by the government to get the banks to increase available loans to small business to the tune of £20 billion are quite comically called ‘Project Merlin’. Merlin, it has been suggested, was the result of a human and demonic union – how fitting. Who plays the part of the incubus in this performance is dependent on your own particular bias. There is a battle for supremacy sees the futures of many small businesses and the employment they support at risk. Who will win – the entrenched views of the banking cabal or the under-pressure government? Time will tell.

The coming fortnight could be the most important for the future prospects of the economy in the past year. Not only are we due a resolution, or otherwise, but we could also an increase in base rates from Monetary Policy Committee – and what a set of contradictory events that could turn out to be.

The problem is: can you afford to wait for the banks to finally get their act together and become more forthcoming with loans to small businesses? Will it come this month, next, when it’s too late? In that time you can expect a conclusion to this debacle, we would have helped about 75 entrepreneurs pitch to Angel Investors via our SpeedFunding events in Glasgow, Leeds, Edinburgh, Manchester and London – and that’s not even counting the thousands that just choose manage the process of attracting business funding online.

You only have to monitor the stream of people talking about small business lending via the social web to realise that this is an issue of critical importance to the nation. Bank lending has been falling over the past quarter has fallen and this simply cannot continue if we want to create a healthy environment for growth.

The Small Business Economic Forum has called for small firms to be more proactive in raising capital, and we fully support their cries, but we just hope the government heed their own advice and get small business lending flowing again – whether they need to use a carrot or a stick. Just get it done.

Perfect Business!