Growth Street pledges £75m overdraft funding for East Anglia
GROWTH Street has pledged to commit £75m of overdraft-style financing to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in East Anglia.
The peer-to-peer business lender, which provides a revolving credit facility for borrowers, said it is already 10 per cent towards its target having lent £7.5m in the region.
It comes as UK Finance data showed a drop in the value of overdrafts provided by high street banks in June 2019.
Growth Street warned banks have scaled back the amount they lend to SMEs in overdrafts by 50 per cent sine the 2008 financial crisis.
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“To have already agreed just under £7.5m of funding lines for East Anglian SMEs is a great start, but there’s still a long way to go to plug the gap left by the banks,” Andy Phillips, Growth Street’s East Anglia representative, said.
“As someone who has been supporting SMEs in East of England since the late 1970s, I’ve seen first-hand how the banks have stopped offering overdrafts of any great value.
“That’s why I joined Growth Street: to deliver the time-tested, overdraft-style facility that SMEs need, but with modern tech to bring it into the 21st century.”
It comes after the P2P lending platform revealed its Innovative Finance ISA (IFISA) has attracted £1m in deposits in the six weeks since it was launched.