Six months on from its launch in June, Cambridge & Counties Bank, which focuses on established small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs), says it is on course to meet both its lending and deposit targets.
The lending market continues to be difficult for SMEs, with recent research carried out by Cambridge & Counties revealing that businesses across Britain had 47,777 overdraft and loan applications worth as much as GBP2.5bn rejected in H1 2012.
In this challenging market, the new bank is on track to achieve its lending targets. It has also revealed that deposits currently exceed target following the launch of its 30 day notice account offering for businesses.
Gary Wilkinson (pictured), chief executive, Cambridge & Counties Bank, says: “We’re thrilled with the banks’ progression and are delighted to play a part in an SME sector that is pivotal in re-energising the UK economy and leading the recovery. Many of these SMEs have their hands tied by bigger banks unable or unwilling to lend, but to grow and be successful there needs to be access to finance for them.
“Our focus is on a local and personalised relationship approach consisting of business development managers focusing primarily on Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, coupled with a national broker coverage model. We believe this has appealed to a wider variety of smaller businesses in a difficult economy.”
Offering loans to local businesses such as retailers, hot food takeaways, public houses as well as loans to both commercial property landlords and experienced residential landlords, the vast majority of loan approvals made by the bank go through within 48 hours.
Cambridge & Counties Bank provides SMEs with loans secured against commercial property as well as a business deposit account. In addition, it also offers secured pension scheme lending, and has recently started to offer loans to residential property investors who can demonstrate knowledge and experience in this market. The bank also has plans to shortly launch professional firm financing, as well as other competitive savings accounts into both the retail and non-retail sectors.
The bank is jointly owned by Cambridgeshire Local Government Pension Fund and Trinity Hall, a College of the University of Cambridge.
