The Business Bulletin
SME Survey Did you take advantage of any of the Government schemes to support small businesses during COVID-19? Whilst not every business owner had access to financial support, there were various funding options available for those that were eligible. The intention of this survey (39 respondents) was to explore which streams of funding were taken up, what the money was to be used for and to discover whether there was a liability from businesses not being able to pay back any loans received. As you can see from figure 1, the Bounce Back Loan (BBL) was popular with 65.7% of those eligible taking advantage of this low-cost option for funding. With 80% of those who took advantage using it to bolster cashflow (figure 2).
Figure 1
Reassuringly, from all the answers provided, the funding was used for
they can repay the loan. However,
legitimate business use as it was intended. Not as in some cases using the funding to purchase a new car or house extension!! From figure 3 you can see that the majority (80%) are confident that
Hopefully the potential extension
that leaves 20% that are either a no or
of the initial five year pay back term to
unsure. This is of some concern if you
10 years will help ease the ability
extrapolate these results across the
to repay. This “Pay as you Grow”
country for the amount of loans taken
scheme also allows businesses to
out and the potential bad debt that it
delay their repayment start date by a
leaves the lenders.
further six months.
Get involved To take part in the next survey – Are you going to increase your sales over the next 12 months? – visit here: https://forms.gle/ vqViFtFx9udHzN1c9. The results will be shared in the next edition of this magazine. Figure2
50 | Issue 9 – Finance
Figure3
