SME lender B-North welcomes funding
B-North has applied for a banking licence
B-North, a Manchester-based provider of SME lending, has received funding from Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA).
B-North is currently in the process of gaining a banking licence. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) make up the vast bulk of the northern UK economy, according to an IPPR report in February 2019, 99.8% of North England businesses have fewer than 250 employees.
With the funding from the GMCA, B-North will invest further in its cloud-based banking infrastructure and deliver lending solutions for regional SMEs through the establishment of its Manchester ‘Lending Pod’.
B-North will operate ‘Lending Pods’ in major cities across the UK, the first of which is in Manchester. Each Pod will contain people experienced in the lending needs of SMEs, including underwriters with discretion to sanction facilities locally and an in-house valuer.
All loan applications will be managed locally, and customers will have access to the local teams and resource in the B-North head office.
This highly localised model will allow lending to be made available to SMEs within 10 working days.
Jonathan Thompson, co-founder, B-North, says: “At B-North, we will offer tailored cloud-based banking and flexible support through an unrivalled product set, which will allow SMEs to remain competitive”.
