Traditionally the bank manager would be ‘in the driving seat’ when it came to the annual overdraft review (sometimes, now, a more frequent event) in that they would tell you when it was, what information they wanted and organise the meeting. Sometimes that was at short notice but it didn’t matter, it all went smoothly Read more about How do you prepare for your overdraft discussion?[…]

Reports out of the launch of the NACFB on-line directory for businesses – to help business owners’ understand where best to source finance from. This is good news as it will open the eyes of commercial borrowers to the fact that there are more lenders out there than just the names they see on the Read more about Free On-Line Directory of Lenders – will it help?[…]

One to watch for those borrowers – particularly property investors – who have term loans with the usual covenants built in (i.e interest cover and ‘loan to value’ cover) plus an ‘Interest Rate Management’ contract (commonly known as a SWAP) running alongside. Just seen a case this week where the annual covenant tests are due Read more about SWAP break costs added into ‘Loan to Value’ covenant tests[…]

Good to see some coverage recently on the issue of businesses taking out interest rate protection policies. It didn’t quite cover all the issues however and as you may expect it painted the banks in a bit of a poor light. The issue about these interest rate contracts (aka SWAPS) is that businesses should not Read more about ‘Insuring against Rate Rises’ – The Mail on Sunday runs only half the story[…]