We supported small businsses witrh half a billion in 2017

18 January 2018

We started 2017 with a firm objective, to provide UK small businesses with half a billion in finance that could both drive growth and support entrepreneurism across the board.

Reports previously released by the RBS independent lending review suggested that UK small businesses were underfunded by as much as £35billion, making access to finance for small businesses in the UK an increasingly critical consideration.

Over the last two years, we’ve taken the time to evaluate our offerings and our position within the market to understand how best to help fill this funding gap.

Thanks to customer feedback and engagement, we’ve developed a new and more varied range of products, many of which are directly in response to customer and market demand, including our Business Development Loan, our Interest Only options and a Commercial Mortgage offering. With this approach we have delivered more than 32% more funding to UK businesses in 2017 than in 2016.

Andy Davis, White Oak UK Managing Director, comments:

“I am delighted with the performance of the business in 2017. We’ve committed ourselves to delivering better and more capable solutions across the business, providing new products and better systems that facilitate increased opportunities to our customers, both directly and through our rapidly growing broker community.

“It’s no secret that UK business owners need more support, be it to scale up and invest in their operations or simply to aid cash flow. We know our customers have choice within the market, and as such, we are extremely proud that more businesses than ever before have chosen to do business with White Oak UK, via both new and existing relationships.”

Championing small businesses is very much at the heart of everything we do, as in essence, it closely echoes our own roots in business, albeit we’ve come a long way in the last 32 years.

2017 was a year of change for White Oak UK, not just in terms of our offerings to our customers, vendors and brokers, but also in the way we communicated. We changed our style, we increased our personnel with some exceptional hires and importantly, we removed the jargon, choosing to talk plainly and simply to our audiences, demonstrating a clear and less bureaucratic approach to lending. We called it the flipside of finance.

Peter Alderson, White Oak UK Managing Director, comments:

Peter adds, “In terms of what the future holds for us, it’s quite simple. We will continue to do more of the same, delivering substantially increased opportunities for finance to small businesses across the UK, ensuring that we continue to deliver the most appropriate solutions to our customers ever-changing needs.”

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