An article in the Financial Times regarding the shortfall of financing for small businesses, mentions the growing opportunity this plight has created for alternative forms of financing. The number forwarded by the FT is an incredible gap of £60 Billion by 2016. A significant sum.
An executive at the Bank of England, Andy Haldane states,
“Small peer-to-peer lenders … could in time replace high street banks.”
A comment like that would have been considered near heresy about a decade ago as the celebratory life in “The City” seemed to have no end in sight. How times have changed.
The FT goes on to quote John Veal, CIO of Stonehage Investment Partners,
“The retreat of banks from the SME funding market over the past few years has created opportunities.”
With the growing success of the UK based sites such as CrowdCube and the new entrant of US based Kickstarter hitting the British scene – it appears these stolid individuals are late to the game. Crowdfunding is growing and vibrant across the Atlantic already today. The Brits have already recognized the value in supporting Entreprenuers using Crowdfunding sites. They have beaten their US allies by allowing Equity based crowdfunding today.