Tag Archives: UK SME Referral Scheme

LFP094 – 2018 New Year Special! Fintech Tour d’Horizon, Report Card & Its Context

In this New Year Special I’ll survey the state of the art and present a report card for each of the main  Fintech sectors – P2P, Bitcoin, Blockchain, Money, App-only banks, Insuretech, Digital I.M., Regtech, Payments and a deeper dive into the leading AI of 2017. We also examine the broader context for Fintech – namely US Tech Giants who had a seismic shift in 2017.

No awards as such this year but plenty of honourable mentions and a host of goodies for those of you in search of new ideas.

Topics discussed include:  Continue reading

LFP083 – Matchmaking Lending and Borrowing with Conrad Ford CEO Funding Options

Conrad was on the show back in LFP020 since when he has built Funding Options (strapline “your free marketplace for business finance”) into one of the most successful London Fintechs. They were chosen as one of three UK government mandated SME Referral Portals, are the largest of those by an order of magnitude, increased revenue fourfold last year, are on target to triple again this year as well as being on target to be the UK’s largest introducer of working capital finance.

Funding Options essential task/service is lining up all the many SME borrowers out there with relevant sources of Finance. A task made all the harder by the plethora of lenders and the many types of lending finance available.

How has this task evolved over the past 2.5yrs?

How is lending right now?

How is borrowing?

Topics discussed on the show include:  Continue reading

LFP068 – The London Fintech Podcast’s 2016 Highlights and 2017 Awards

Dilbert by Scott Adams - Fintech 2016 turns into Fintech 2017Happy New Year boys and girls 🙂 May 2017 be a great one for you and yours! This is the New Year Special where I look back at my 9 highlights from 2016, dish out 10 immensely prestigious awards  and take a peak at 2017.

So without futher ado lets kick off the awards… Continue reading

LFP020 – UK SME Finance Referral Scheme with Conrad Ford CEO of Funding Options

Conrad Ford CEO Funding Options

In essence the (prosaically named) “UK SME Finance Referral Scheme” basically means that soon banks wont be able to tell SMEs to bugger-off any more (which was the reality behind the prosaic (and often very slow) “loan application declined” formula).  Rather banks that turn down loan requests will need to direct SMEs to a portal(s)/alternative finance providers.

This market is far more diversified than fintech folks might imagine – for example the challenger banks Aldemore and Shawbrook have each individually lent more than the entire P2P industry.  Last year Funding Options referred SME borrowers to 50 different providers of finance (in one case saving 100 jobs).  They believe that this number is well in excess of any other players, but even then estimate that they have only addressed about 20% of the possibilities.

As you might imagine whilst the concept is simple the implementation of the scheme is tricky and complex.  Conrad has been one of the key players advising the government in this context and Funding Options are one of the possible portals.

Conrad discusses the scheme and in the process covers the SME funding market – there are possibly more providers in the UK than in any comparable market in the world.

Key topics are: Continue reading