BFS finds Gender Inequity in Commercial Lending

New research has been conducted by Bibby Financial Services (BFS) that says women business leaders are coming across gender disparity in commercial lending. BFS is an independent SME funder that has been founded in the year 1982, catering in Financial Services industry.

This gender inequity shows hampering many SMEs growth ambitions. New data has been revealed by BFS’s latest SME Confidence Tracker that has surveyed 1000 SMEs from UK and showed that 66 per cent of women business leaders have a strong believe that banks are less prepared to lend to women-owned businesses whereas 57 per cent suggests it's more difficult to access external finance as compared to 6 months ago.

Chief Strategic Development Officer at BFS comments, Lucile Flamand stated, “According to the Rose Review, £250bn in value could be added to the UK economy if women matched the number of men starting and scaling a business, and a critical dependency of this is being able to access finance. With many high street sources re-appraising their risk appetite for SME lending owing to rising insolvencies in the past year, systemic bias could be intensifying the issue for women-led enterprises, despite data showing that women-led businesses are less likely to face administration.”

Only 2.9 per cent of companies that are founded by women went into administration in 2023 in comparison to 14 per cent of all male owned businesses in about same time frame, as per the Female Founder Finance and mnAi analysis.