Over the next couple of years, the business finance landscape in Britain is set to be overturned by a revolutionary phenomenon that has been growing and growing over recent months and thriving off the country’s many small businesses. This mysterious entity is what is known as alternative finance and it is transforming the lending process at a rate of knots.
Research carried out by modern lender ‘with traditional values’, Amicus strongly suggests that there will be an increased appetite for crowdfunding and finance from outlets such as property, invoice and assets. This subsequently means a consequential move away from traditional methods of funding such as bank lending, in favour of peer-to-peer (P2P) finance.
Business leaders are predicting that interest in the alternative finance sector will climb by a substantial 26% over the next couple of years, with a mere 8% contrastingly expecting a decline. During the year 2014, more than £1.7bn was raised through alternative finance, which was double the figures released for the previous year, meaning those anticipating this boom are highly optimistic.
Amicus CEO, John Jenkins, said: “This research shows that the business finance landscape has changed for good and demand for alternative finance is set to go from strength to strength over the coming years.
“Small businesses are increasingly turning to specialist lenders who have the skills to understand their specific needs. Having built a strong business base from our property lending expertise we are broadening our proposition into other areas of lending markets that are poorly served by mainstream lenders.”
KPMG forms new partnership with P2P lender MarketInvoice
One company who is amongst those expecting an alternative finance boom is professional services firm, KPMG. The firm has just this week announced a new collaboration with P2P business lender MarketInvoice, which has been implemented through a mutual belief that alternative finance is the key to the future of small business growth.
The two firms will be working together to provide users of KPMG’s Small Business Accounting Service direct access to P2P funding via MarketInvoice’s existing financial platform. The companies will also be working together to provide SMEs across Britain with a range of regional events, webinars, eBooks and online accountancy support.
MarketInvoice CEO, Anil Stocker says that “the world of finance is changing and went on to explain that “Fintech companies like MarketInvoice offer new ways for businesses to access finance quickly, simply and transparently, direct from their accounting software.”
He added: “It’s great that KPMG is backing this movement, and is helping to make more UK businesses aware of the latest funding options available to them. We’re excited to work together to drive the growth of UK small businesses and the economy.”
The partnership was also catalysed by research carried out by KPMG which showed that big banks could potentially be set to lose around 10% of market share to alternative finance by 2020 and this could number could even increase depending on how the finance landscape develops between now and then.
Head of Small Business Accounting at KPMG, Bivek Sharma, said: “Our objective is to help our customers grow and run their businesses as effectively as possible. This alliance supports that goal as it will help KPMG customers to access finance as quickly as they require it. By combining cloud-based accounting services with online finance, businesses can access the funds they need more easily than ever.”
