High Interest Rates Halt Female Entrepreneur Growth: Tide Survey

According to a new poll performed by Tide, the UK's premier business finance platform, more than one-third of female business owners are delaying their expansion plans owing to high interest rates. The findings are part of Tide's new Female Business Owners UK Index, which was created to assess the barriers that women face when beginning and growing their businesses.

With borrowing rates in the UK now around 5%, 38% of questioned female entrepreneurs said they had frozen their expansion plans, while 37% cited difficulty managing cash flow. Out of 458 women polled, a stunning 74% said high borrowing rates had a detrimental impact on their companies in the last six months, with 40% finding it difficult to plan for the long term.

Within the same era, the poll identified other reasons contributing to the problems experienced by female-led enterprises, such as inflation (38%), energy prices (25%), and access to finance constraints (25%).

Despite these challenges, the majority (74%) of women polled are positive about the year 2024, expecting revenue increase. Tide's female members are motivated to move forward, despite personal problems such as poor self-esteem (33%) and difficulty juggling caring obligations.

Heather Cobb, SVP Member Engagement at Tide, underlined the significance of removing obstacles to female entrepreneurship. Tide strives to promote gender equality and help women in business through a variety of projects, with the objective of aiding 200,000 women in the UK and 500,000 in India in starting new businesses by 2027.

Despite advances, the UK continues to trail behind other affluent nations in terms of female entrepreneurship, with just 5.6% of women owning their own firms. Tide's project aims to address this gap and encourage more women to pursue their business goals.