We recently chatted with John Lightfoot, Head of Relationship Management at Ultimate Finance, about what they have been up to this past year. Ultimate Finance has been nominated for both asset finance lender of the year and invoice finance lender of the year. Since its launch in 2002, Ultimate Finance has lent over £10 bn in funding. They have specifically funded more than £1.5bn to SMEs across the UK throughout 2020, £35m of this was via CBILS. Read on to find out more:
How has Ultimate Finance been helping SMEs over the past year?
Like most businesses, we were forced to reshape the way we worked overnight when our entire team was asked to work from home last March. We knew that the challenges we were facing were shared with virtually every business owner and we wanted to ensure that we could continue to offer all our existing clients and introducers the same first-class service that they’re used to whilst still providing much-needed funding to new clients.
We quickly gained accreditation to the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) to offer term loans alongside Invoice Finance and CBILS-backed Asset Finance and Bridging Finance to businesses who may not otherwise have been able to secure the funding they needed to keep trading through the pandemic. Alongside this, we continued to provide our full range of non-CBILS facilities and in total provided £125m of new funding facilities in 2020 and £1.5bn of total funding advances.
As the funding partner of choice supporting both our introducers and clients, we hosted a range of webinars to offer information about various government schemes and our own funding solutions as tools to keep their business moving, as well as providing wellbeing and mental health advice from experts so they could look after themselves and their own teams.
Has Ultimate Finance made any changes to its lending to accommodate the difficulties faced by SMEs?
In addition to the above answer we have supported some clients via deferral of repayments, deferred and reduced fees for nontrading business or those severely hit by COVID, we have also delayed reductions in both customer and client funding limits where needed and We’ve supported existing Asset Finance clients with over 500 of them receiving payment holidays.
What makes Ultimate Finance unique as a lender?
As an independent company backed by the international private investment organisation, Tavistock Group, we take a different approach to business funding: we are solution-led, which means that we take the time to understand a business’s needs and ambitions so we can tailor the funding we provide them.
Some lenders have incorporated automated processes that provide answers to lending applications based on algorithms. But this is not how we use technology at Ultimate Finance – we pride ourselves on human underwriting facilitated by a quick process and use of technology. Indeed, we use technology to enhance the ability of our team to better serve our customers and to improve the quality of interactions with both the introducer and the underlying borrower.
Everything we do is geared towards building long-term relationships with our clients and our introducers as evidenced by our 4.9/5 score on TrustPilot – we provide the funding they need so they can get on with managing their business.
Do you have any advice for SMEs who are hesitant to take out funding?
We strive to remove the stigma and jargon attached to business funding so that business owners can approach it the way they would personally finance such as a mortgage. Business funding is no different – it helps turn ambitions into reality, whether that be to expand their business or simply to keep trading without worrying about cash flow.
It’s okay to be hesitant, but only if that hesitance is based on knowledge. Explore the types of funding you could access, think through what that could do for you, listen to others who have funding, speak to trusted advisors, and gain the knowledge to make an informed decision.
What can we expect to see from Ultimate Finance now that CBILS has come to a close?
Exactly what you saw before – a business that is resolute in its desire to help SMEs and one that continues to offer a high level of proactive customer service. We pride ourselves on our ability to offer a wide range of competitively priced products that are delivered well. The opening of CBILS didn’t change that nor will it’s closure.
In summary, what businesses and introducers can expect from Ultimate Finance post-CBILS is the same commitment to keeping business moving through our tailored funding and excellent service.
Good Luck to Ultimate Finance and all of the SME Funding Award nominees. Watch this space for the winner announcements!
To find out more about the awards and the nominees take a look at the SME Funding Awards homepage here.
