An insight into UK Bond Network and its position within the alternative funding arena

UK Bond Network serves to bridge a crucial funding gap, providing between £500,000 and £4million of debt finance to both publicly quoted and unquoted companies. UK small businesses seeking finance of less than £1m are now much better served than a few years ago — this is at least in part due to the proliferation of alternative finance providers.

Indeed, the most recent Trends in Lending report from the Bank of England highlighted the decreasing demand and increasing supply of credit for smaller UK businesses. Contrary to this, however, the report noted medium sized private non-financial corporations continue to suffer from tightening credit supply, and consequently demand from credit continues to increase.

We take the time to meet the individuals behind applicant businesses and treat them as people, rather than numbers. The larger size of finance we deliver enables us to commit more human capital to each issue, which allows each bond be specifically tailored to work synergistically with the requirements of each issuing company — rather than forcing a one size fits all structure onto business.

Going further than just trying to obtain finance for the business we work with, we deliver certainty of funding to our borrowers — a crucial factor to many small businesses. This certainty is provided through underwriting relationships with a number of institutional investors.