June 30, 2011
Filed under: Business Software — Alan @ 4:13 pm
Developments in high-speed broadband can help provide a boost for Wales businesses it has been claimed by a leading industry body. Federation of Small Businesses in Wales spokesperson Simon Evans said the internet’s emergence and the entrepreneurship potential it holds is enormous.
Cost to set up very low and instant access to the marketplace around the world make this very suited to small business, especially in small rural areas. But he said companies and specifically those in the countryside in Wales are being let down because of slow broadband speeds and poor infrastructure.
Broadband is an essential utility not an added luxury it is similar today to electricity and water. He said Wales cannot be left behind as across the UK high broadband is being rolled out. The Federation of Small Businesses in Wales has raised concerns about the UK growing digital divide and the lack of broadband coverage in the principality.
June 29, 2011
Filed under: Small Business News — Alan @ 7:16 am
A new pension plan is going to hit small businesses very hard when it comes into force starting next year. All businesses starting in 2012 with employees that earn more than the income tax personal allowance will be required to enroll into a pension scheme and pay a minimum of 3% as a contribution.
The Institute of Directors (IoD) has surveyed firms about the new regulations and said that over 95% of the businesses that at present do not have a pension arrangement for their employees into which the employer makes contributions are SMEs. They will have to set up and auto-enroll and fund the scheme without any help that big businesses get from their human resources department.
Miles Templeman the IoD director general said the government must not underestimate how much auto enrollment is a cost burden for the small firm. Bigger businesses for the most part have pension arrangements set for their employees.
Off course the retirement provision in the UK must be improved but like always it is the small businessman that gets hit. The IoD also said that 20% of small businesses were unaware the legislation was to be introduced in 2012.
June 25, 2011
Filed under: Small Business News — Alan @ 9:54 am
The newest high street bank, Metro Bank today has said when it comes to SMEs lending they will not discriminate. The news follows research that Metro Bank says shows that 43% of larger firms have access to the banking manager while only 16% of micro SMEs get access. Larger businesses also are more likely to ask for and be granted loans than SMEs at the rate of 29% to 2% respectively.
The larger SMEs have between 50 and 250 employees and the micro SMEs have less than 10. The report interviewed more than 500 SME decision makers and revealed that micro business not only are less apt to receive advice and support of an advisor they are also substantially less apt to successfully get a business loan. In the last 12 months 29% of larger businesses have been granted loans while only 2% of the micro businesses.
This all despite the fact micro businesses are requesting significantly smaller loan amounts from their particular bank. The research shows that just 19% of the recent applications for loans from Micro businesses have been for more than £50,000, in contrast 92% of loan requests for larger businesses were for more than £50,000.
The larger businesses are apt to request larger sums of money but they are also more likely to be confident to request money at all. Only 7% of all micro businesses turn to their banks for help over the past 12 months with over five times more larger businesses looking for funding for their business. This double standard of treatment has not gone unnoticed by the micro SMEs with many micro businesses deciding to look for another bank in the next 12 months.
June 24, 2011
Filed under: General — admin @ 10:40 am
Spread betting developed in the 1970s as a hobby of off-duty City traders, initially focusing on the price of gold. The following two decades saw diversification into forex, sports betting and equity, which remains the main focus of spread betting today. It represents a tax-efficient, albeit highly risky, way to speculate on financial markets as profits are not subject to UK capital gains or stamp tax, and no actual purchase of stock occurs.
A spread bet is a bet placed on whether an outcome will be above or below a spread of values determined by the spread betting company used. Financial betting requires a bet to be placed at the offer price if you think the index will rise, or the bid price if you think it will fall. When the bet is closed the difference between the actual price of the index and the price at which you placed the bet determines the profit or loss you make. It is possible to make large profits from market movements in either direction, but also large losses.
The real boom in spread betting occurred in the late 1990s with the online revolution resulting in stock trading becoming accessible not just to professional traders but to anyone with access to the internet. This has resulted in a highly competitive market for spread betting providers, with narrow spreads and efficient customer service a key feature of the top businesses. The increasing interest in financial betting has continued since 2000, with a corresponding increase in spread betting companies. Over a four-year period between 2005 and 2009 the number of providers in the UK trebled. One company, GFT Global Markets UK, saw the number of daily bets placed increase from hundreds to tens of thousands when online betting was introduced.
The growth of spread betting in the UK has been so rapid that traditional stockbrokers have started to feel the effects, and some have set up spread betting businesses alongside their existing services. However, the volume of conventional trading in the underlying markets is thought to far outweigh that of spread betting. Since spread bets will be hedged with a CFD, in turn hedged using the underlying stock, traditional trade in stocks will not be adversely affected. In this way spread betting is seen as providing an alternative option mainly for the private trader rather than corporate or institutional investors.
To attract new customers providers pride themselves on ultra-efficient service and most will offer bonuses such as free demo accounts for newcomers to practise before placing real bets, and the opportunity to start accounts with as little as £50. Following a number of investigations and fines by the Financial Services Authority companies are starting to provide basic training and guidance for new customers to counter accusations that they provide insufficient warning of the risks of spread betting to inexperienced traders. The competitive nature of the market means that spread betting businesses rely on their reputation and service to maintain loyalty and attract new customers.
The recent development of apps and mobile trading platforms has allowed the top financial betting providers to tap into this market with a variety of mobile products, allowing customers worldwide instant access to their accounts and trading tools. This has been particularly popular with sports spread betting, as combined with the availability of live sports broadcasts it has the potential for a large increase in the number of bets placed. It is expected to appeal particularly to private traders, with its full potential as yet still unrealised.
Although hard to predict, it is anticipated that the growth in spread betting in the UK is likely to continue, but companies must continue to evolve with modern technology to maintain their place in the crowded market.
Article Courtesy of www.etxcapital.co.uk.
June 23, 2011
Filed under: Small Business News — Alan @ 1:07 am
One of the problems facing small businesses in the U.K. is the failure of other, larger businesses that purchase products and services to pay their bills on time. According to the Forum of Private Business’s CEO, Phil Orford, big companies that do work for the public sector are generally paid promptly, but they don’t pay their own bills from smaller suppliers for weeks or months.
The way it is supposed to work is that the government pays its suppliers of goods and services within five days of billing; those companies in turn are supposed to pay the bills from other companies in 30 days or less. Mr. Orford said too often this is not the case, and the result is a cash-flow problem for the SME’s (small and medium enterprises.)
This week Cabinet Minister Frances Maude promised to take measures that will improve the situation.
He said he would “crackdown” on contractors who dragged their feet on paying invoices from suppliers even though the contractors themselves had been paid. He also said he’s trying make it easier for SME’s to get more of the government’s procurement contracts, which amount to about £190bn annually.
However, Phillip King, CEO of the Institute of Credit Management, says the SME’s have to help themselves by taking advantage of the information supplied by credit reference agencies, and sharing that information with other small businesses so everyone knows if a particular company has a record of slow payments.
June 22, 2011
Filed under: Small Business News — Alan @ 6:59 am
A project across Coventry and the surrounding area to help over 1,600 businesses will be given additional funding of £14.6 million it was announced today. The West Midlands SME Internationalization project a Coventry University Enterprise initiative has been increased from £6m to £20m.
The idea is to increase SME’s sales, competitiveness and profits by lending support for those firms looking to open international trade. The Parliamentary Under Secretary of State Minister Baroness Hanham mad the announcement during a visit to Coventry.
Through expert advice and tailored action plans the additional investment will enable the project to help the companies interested in developing international trade. It will help with activities like international trade visits, market intelligence gathering, market development, and awareness shops.
Coventry University’s deputy vice chancellor John Latham said they are particularly pleased significant ERDF funding will be invested into the SMI Internationalism Project in the West Midlands because up to this date it has helped over 350 companies and helped to save over 700 jobs. In the long haul in helping more SMEs it will encourage and increase diversification of the export base in the West Midlands.
Some £10.4 million will come directly from the European Regional Development Fund and will be matched by UKTI West Midlands and private businesses. UKTI international trade director Doug Mahoney said with the new government white paper on investment and trade highlighting the importance of international trade for the UK economy this makes the additional ERDF investment very timely and important.
Even more SMEs will be able to be assisted in their quest for internationalization through the provision of additional help to develop overseas markets and to bring local businesses together to view potential opportunities. The announcement came as part of the visit by Baroness Hahham to the city various ERDF supported development.
June 16, 2011
Filed under: Small Business News — Alan @ 7:40 am
A recent study says 90% of small businesses if they had access to better facilities would recycle more. The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) study has caused calls to the Government to put more focus during the Waste Review due next week on small businesses.
The FSB said it was often times difficult for SME to access recycling services since they are not made available by local authorities for businesses, even though they are aware that minimizing waste helps both the environment and their own businesses.
Because very small amounts of wastes comparatively are produced by SME’s, they cannot take on waste management companies to handle their recycling. The Waste Review – the small business case is the FSB report that outlines steps that the Government should take to help ensure SMEs can have access to recycling and waste services.
They are requesting that DEFRA allow the SMEs to start using household recycling and waste centre. They say it would be easy and quick to implement and would be compatible for smaller businesses that usually produce very little volume of waste.
They also requested that DEFRA ensure that any refurbished or new commercial buildings have enough storage space so companies can store waste. The FSB’s environmental committee chairman David Caro said that small businesses want to do their part for the environment but need access to the correct facilities locally.
A good number of small firms only produce the waste of a normal household yet they are not allowed to use the same facilities and often find themselves at the mercy of a high priced recycling and waste market.
June 15, 2011
Filed under: Small Business News — Alan @ 7:37 am
For small and medium sized businesses access to business finance is still an issue. All over the UK SMEs are having problems as banks and other types of lending institutions find they have to turn down loan applications. Even though the country is officially back from the recession many of the problems that were present at the peak of the financial crisis have not really been resolved.
Vince Cable, Business Secretary recently revealed that he demanded banks release information on how their directors’ pay is somehow linked to small business lending. Some banks were much more open than others when it came to their finances.
Santander and Lloyds have been more than up from with what they are doing. But the problem is the government does not have sufficient powers to penalize those that do not comply. Nevertheless banks receive letters explaining the importance of lending to the small enterprises and also requesting transparency in their efforts with financing.
It remains to be seen if the governments pressure will be enough to ease the lending problems or not but experts are already calling for alternative methods of alleviating the financial stress. Churchouse Finance Planning’s director Keith Churchouse suggested the tax system needs amending to allow for companies to stay afloat and avoid the need for loans all together.
Alternative sources have been called on by the Institute of Directors and the Federation of Small Businesses to be explored. The thought is if wealthy investors will invest in SMEs in exchange for tax assistance it could alleviate the current strain on banks. The fact is for some time to come firms will continue to face funding hardships.
June 10, 2011
Filed under: Loans — Alan @ 2:49 am
Vince Cable, Business Secretary told a parliamentary committee it is a serious problem that lending to small and medium businesses has not achieved the targets set by the government, by UK banking groups.
Recently published data by the Bank of England showed banks had met their overall lending targets but failed to meet their SME goals. SME’s often have no other source of funding than banks Cable told the committee and it was a problem with subdued lending possibly inhibiting the recovery of the economy.
It is a serious problem Cable remarked that the SME targets were not being realized. He said they were trying to get the banks to increase their desire to lend to SMEs. They had set a 15% rate of growth and certainly that was not met in the first quarter.
He received questions as to why lending remained weak and some banks argue there is a weakness in loan demand of which that is definitely a factor. He acknowledged that there was a more serious problem that banks will knowledge.
June 9, 2011
Filed under: Small Business News — Alan @ 2:43 am
Both political and business leaders have urged the Government to help more by backing entrepreneurs after receiving a warning that a generation of young business tycoons has been lost by Scotland.
They say there has to be a new look into the enterprise policy with a new business startup fund implemented and access to easier lines of credit established. They say that Scotland could take advice from Wales who introduced an entrepreneurship plan that was successful over a decade ago.
A report released yesterday said that there was less thirty something business leaders that had aspirations to follow behind the current ones like Duncan Nannatyne, Michelle Mone and Sir Tom Hunter.
The Global Enterprise Monitor released the research by Dr. Jonathan Levie received praise from the Federation of Small Business (FSB) Colin Borland saying the centre should be applauded for producing such an impartial and important piece of research.
The Scottish Government said the report was useful but is did not reflect actual outcomes or even the wider picture. The FSB would argue the merits of the investigation. All levers need to be used to ensure the current leaders in business are not the last ones we will have.
The GEM report says Scotland has only a 3.7% start up rate in business among the working population while the percentage for the entire UK stands at 5.6%, with fear of failure increasing from 31% in 2007 to over 43% in 2010.
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