Despite all the publicity surrounding Project Merlin, umbrella company contractors might be surprised to learn that a large proportion of businesses in the UK are unaware of its existence.
Project Merlin was devised at the beginning of this year to encourage the major banks to lend more money to companies in the UK, especially small businesses.
Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group and the Royal Bank of Scotland all signed up to the deal, whilst Santander also agreed to increase its business lending. The Project Merlin banks promised to lend a total of £190 billion to UK companies this year, £76 billion of which would go to smaller firms.
However, lending to smaller firms actually decreased from £20.5 billion to just £18.8 billion between the second and third quarters of this year.
Travelex has recently published its latest Confidence Index showing that 62% of firms do not know about Project Merlin. The Index also showed that only about 40% of the UK’s smaller companies are confident in the current economic climate.
Paddy Earnshaw, the customer director from Travelex Global Business Payments, said that knowing how to access credit could spell the difference between success and failure for small enterprises and it is extremely concerning that almost two-thirds of smaller businesses are not aware of Project Merlin.
The Chancellor did spell out measures in his Autumn Statement to make more financial help available to SMEs, but maybe the Government should take heed of the results of Travelex’s research and do more to publicise the help that is available.
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