Balance Sheet: How 2022 will be different for SMEs

The first session in our new webinar series for Advisors hit the ground running with a look at how the latest Budget will affect SMEs, particularly around RLS.

Swoop has launched Balance Sheet, a monthly webinar for advisors who are helping their clients to grow in a difficult climate. 

Our launch episode, broadcast live less than 24 hours after Chancellor Sunak’s Budget Statement. It could not have been more timely as the government announced a fuel duty freeze, new criteria for the R&D Credit scheme and an extension of the RLS. 

Host Sam Horner was joined by Andrea Reynolds, Founder and CEO at Swoop and some of the latest members of the team: Stuart Pawelczyk, Head of Property and Commercial Finance and Rhys Cunnah, Head of Unsecured and Asset Finance at Swoop. 

In a lively discussion, the team took audience questions around strategies for refinancing clients’ debt, the opportunities offered by historically low interest rates and how to make a business more attractive to lenders. 

Changes to RLS took centre stage in the discussions around how the scheme has been used in the past and what it will look like in 2022, with Rhys noting that “RLS is much more open to interpretation than CBILS”, and Andrea remarking, “You always know when it’s a genuinely good scheme when the high street banks aren’t that into it.”

Andrea’s top tip: “File your clients’ accounts early. Even if they aren’t due for another few months, get them done because it matters to lenders. It draws a line in the sand and they can say, ‘this is the cost of COVID-19’.” 

If you missed the live webinar, catch up now to learn:

• Why banks have left gaps in the market – and which lenders are filling those gaps
• How to make your clients’ businesses more attractive as a lending proposition and refinance existing products
• How changes to the terms of RLS will affect lenders’ risk appetites over the next 10 months 

The full conversation is available here.

Make sure you block 12 noon on the last Thursday of every month for future editions of Balance Sheet – the webinar for Advisors from Swoop.