Today, we chat to Robert Keep, Managing Director at Amicus Asset Finance about what they have been up to this past year. Amicus Asset Finance have been nominated in the category if Asset Finance Lender of the Year. Amicus are a innovative lender who offers flexible asset finance solutions ranging from recycling facilities to secured business development loans.
Read on to find out what they have been up to over the past year.
1. How has Amicus been helping SMEs over the past year?
We have been accommodating widespread forbearance requests along with our industry partners to try to make sure that they remain in business for when the recovery inevitably comes. We have taken the view that most of the customers that we lend to have been good businesses run by committed and talented people before the pandemic and therefore fundamentally that will remain the case if we can help them through this period. Where appropriate we have also been considering and undertaking new lending to both new and existing customers albeit without any form of Government support through CLBILS, CBILS or BBLS capability. This has been a challenge but we are confident that we are lending in a sustainable way.
2. Has Amicus made any changes to their lending to accommodate the difficulties faced by SMEs?
We have tried to maintain a helpful and consistent approach without relying upon the taxpayer to bail us out if we have got it wrong. We are very concerned that too much lending taking place at the moment would not be happening without Government intervention which we don’t view as sustainable.
3. What makes Amicus unique as a lender?
We are independently owned and funded without any form of Government support so we get to make our own decisions in our own time both about the businesses we want to lend to and how we want to secure our lending activity. We also get to decide how we want to help our customers that are struggling without prescriptive guidance from a regulator.
4. Do you have any advice for SMEs who are hesitant to take out funding?
Yes, don’t borrow money if you cannot see a clear and definite path to pay it back.
5. What can we expect to see from Amicus now that CBILS has come to a close?
Given that it has been replaced with something that looks strikingly similar I can’t answer that question. What I do know is that eventually all of these support mechanisms will have to end, for us it will remain business as usual, it won’t be for a few others. Expect no change in what we do when things settle, we hope to simply do more of it!
To find out more about the awards and the full page of nominations have a look here.
Watch this space for more content, and for the announcement of winners in May!
