Committed to assisting SMEs in obtaining finance for future growth, Allica Bank has revamped its commercial mortgage products to help improve access to finance. The changes include reducing interest rates and increasing the maximum Loan-To-Value (LTV). The bank has also increased procuration fees for its broker community. The product portfolio was updated in response to Allica’s broker survey in December. It will seebroker procuration fees increase from 1 percent to 1.5 percent for owner-occupied, commercial, and semi-commercial investment mortgages. It will be applying a reduction of 0.25 percent to interest margins for all loans in excess of £1,500,000 on both…

Two in five (40.0 per cent) small and medium-sized businesses in the UK plan to hire, on average, six new employees before the end of March, following a promising start to the year, according to the latest quarterly Barclaycard Payments SME Barometer*. The news comes as 56.2 per cent of SMEs report a rise in earnings in the last quarter of 2021 against the same period in 2020. Data from Barclaycard Payments, which processes £1 in every £3 spent in the UK and services over 350,000 SMEs, supports this trend – with transaction volumes up 42.3 per cent for in…

Cornwall-based Boost Innovations, which has developed an innovative new type of breast prosthesis designed to boost confidence and aid comfort and usability, has just secured a £105k investment from British Design Fund. The start-up was founded by friends and colleagues Sam Jackman and Rosie Brave in 2018, after seeing the many issues Sam’s mum experienced using a breast form following treatment for breast cancer.  Working closely with users, Boost has reimagined the design of the breast form. Unlike traditional prosthesis, Boost’s products are light, comfortable and breathable. They are colourful and decorative – a far cry from the ‘chicken fillet’ feel…

Whether it’s the audacity of such delicate, white flowers to emerge at this time of year, or the fact they are the first of the spring bulbs to emerge and promise the end of winter, discovering the first snowdrop never fails to surprise and lift the spirits. Here at the Cotswold Wildlife Park in Oxfordshire we enjoy drifts of Galanthus nivalis naturalised in several meadows around the Park.   There is also a collection of approximately 30 varieties displayed in the Winter Garden and adjacent woodland setting of the owl enclosures. First to make an appearance is Galanthus ‘Faringdon Double’ with…

StepEx, a fully FCA authorised fintech, providing infrastructure for boot camps and universities to enable students to accept payment with a share of future earnings, has added IronHack, Northcoders and Le Wagon as clients.  Signalling a significant move into the UK by the two largest European boot camps, StepEx, by partnering with the renowned Spanish IronHack and French Le Wagon, demonstrates the vast opportunity for IT training boot camps in the UK and the opportunity for students to access courses in a new, affordable way.  These partnerships allow StepEx to add even more data to further enhance its ability to reliably…

Supply chain delays continue to grab headlines and create real headaches for buyers and suppliers. Much of the delay is rooted in the Covid-19 pandemic. Worker absence continues to slow down production. Ports are congested, containers are in the wrong place and shipping companies are shortening or cancelling routes. As a result, stiff competition for space on container ships increases shipping costs and causes significant delays. This in turn is leading to an influx of disputes between suppliers and purchasers. Where deliveries are delayed, the most pressing question for either party is ‘can the contract be terminated’? Clare Mackay, Senior…

Last December, the British government revealed that 2021 was a record year for tech investment in the country, with £29.4 billion pledged in British tech. This figure marked a 2.3x increase on 2020, which is the largest year-on-year growth since 2013/14. The industry is booming, with the UK storming ahead of European rivals– second place Germany received less than half of the UK’s funds at £14.7 billion. It is therefore a key time for investors to tighten up their investments and ensure that these new tech-driven assets are safe and secure from day one. Guillaume Acard, CTO at Vaultinum provides some…

With today marking the start of half term for many schools across the UK – and COVID-19 travel restrictions now eased in over 25 European countries – almost a third (27%) of Brits surveyed are planning to upgrade their desk view by working remotely from Europe this year. As half term hits, new research from Virgin Media O2 Business reveals a growing trend for a ‘hybrid holiday’: with 76% of workers* polled considering adding remote working days around their annual leave as part of an existing trip, to make the most of time away and combine work and pleasure. The…

ITV has announced that it is partnering with Ecospend, a leading UK provider of open banking technology, to offer customers the ability to ‘pay-by-bank’ for its ITV Win competitions, which feature on headline shows, such as I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! Ecospend’s open banking payment method will launch on the ITV Win website and could potentially later offer an off the screen QR code functionality to let viewers pay for an ITV win entry directly from the screen. As a result of the partnership, payment processing times will become instant and bypass all card processing fees, acquirer…

Whilst many advise ‘never to go into business with family or friends’, over a cup of his famous artichoke tea, Anton Le Khak explains why he wouldn’t have it any other way and why the success of his brand Natur Boutique is a family achievement. It was Anton’s mother who set the entrepreneurial ball rolling in the Le Khak family. In 1991 she set up a company in Kiev, at the time part of the Soviet Union, which supplied herbal remedies from Vietnam to customers in Kiev and, further afield, into Russia. At a time characterized by product shortages in…

Parties entering into a contract are legally bound to honour their agreement or face the possibility of a dispute ending in litigation. So how can a party maximise the chances of bringing a contract to an end without the facing the legal ramifications that can ensue if termination goes wrong? Sinead O’Callaghan, Partner and James Arnold, Associate at Cooke, Young & Keidan provide some guidance and practical steps which can be taken by parties to ensure that they terminate contracts correctly. The first port of call should always be to carefully review the contract in question and, in particular, the termination provisions.…

Withholding contractual sick pay for unvaccinated staff has significant risks that employers should consider before enforcing the policy, according to employee relations experts, AdviserPlus. It comes after several employers including Ikea and Morrisons have cut sick pay for unvaccinated employees after a rise in staff absences over the winter period. Analysis by the Trades Union Congress found that 723,900 private sector workers were self-isolating due to Covid-19 from 13 to 26 December, which is around 2.7% of the private sector workforce. Although the number of positive cases has been in decline recently, with 74,799 new cases on 23 January compared to over…

With Gen Z turning their back on fast fashion, the second-hand clothing market has witnessed exponential growth. Vintage stores, charity shops, and most recently, online offerings such as Depop and Etsy, are seeing massive demand as consumers turn to ethical clothing options. Richard Mason Founded Bournemouth based vintage shop ‘Clobber’ in 1988. Over forty years later and his business is considered one of the most noteworthy vintage shops nationwide. Having set up Clobber Vintage in 1988, I have seen the second-hand clothing market shift and change over a number of decades – and witnessed first hand the changes that have…

Covid-19 not only created a health crisis, but it created a wealth crisis too. Despite support from the Government over the last 18 months many small businesses will continue to face challenges in the coming months. John Bell is director and founder of insolvency firm Clarke Bell.  His advice to any owner of a company that is having cashflow problems or struggling with too much debt is to take control of their situation and seek professional help as soon as possible. Here John explains the difference between the dissolution of a company and liquidation. What is dissolution? Dissolution is a…

It was impossible to go through 2021 without hearing about the crisis afflicting global supply chains.  Back in the first quarter of 2020 the pandemic triggered a catastrophic sequence of events that would ultimately impact how efficiently the world’s distribution networks operated.  As Covid-19 ripped across the world and instigated lockdowns across nations and industries, including manufacturing, many assumed that global demand would drop.  As we know, the opposite happened, and the pandemic ended up supercharging the public’s appetite for goods as people ended up spending less on things like travel and eating out, preferring to make a beeline for…

As an entrepreneur, you can be faced with many difficulties. But self-doubt is often the greatest challenge to conquer. That little voice that says, ‘you can’t do this.’ Or ‘you don’t know enough, you’re not strong enough.’ It begins as a whisper, but gets louder as your business develops. You begin to feel like an imposter in your own life. And that, more than anything else, has the power to cap your business’ potential. And the problem is, it’s a really difficult issue to avoid. Faking self-confidence only intensifies the problem. So, how can you conquer those demons and elevate…