Member Article

Accountants in Norwich witness sucess of EFG scheme

Last week Durham Business School announced that thanks to the Government’s Enterprise Finance Guarantee (EFG) scheme over 100,000 small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) have accessed nearly £1.04 billion worth of loans, an average of £10,000 per business.

EFG is designed to bring security to both newly starting and established SMEs, giving access to loans that range from £1,000 and £1 million. According a press release by Gov.uk every £1 invested by the government has delivered £33.50 for the economy.

Nationally, since 2010 the scheme has:

• Produced 6.5k new jobs
• Protected over 12k jobs
• Provided £1.1 billion net benefit to the economy.

As the government acts as guarantor for 75% of the loan, it means it is more accessible to more businesses. Finding show that 80% of EFG users would not have been able to secure a loan through conventional bank lending, usually because lack of sufficient collateral.

In Norwich, accountants Farnell Clarke have seen a rise in people approaching them for help on starting up a business. Will Farnell explains “EFGs make it more accessible for people to become self-employed and set up their own business”.

The small boosts that EFGs have brought to the Norwich and the economy as a whole should be very welcome after the downgrading of Britain’s triple A credit rating. Recently, the government seem to be placing more emphasis on small businesses with various policies like ‘New Deal for Business’, being put forward.

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This article was written by Ruth Barton on behalf of Farnell Clark, accountants in Norwich.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Barton .