When a bank is selling itself, how can it be financing you?

It’s a little odd to hear, but banks fairly regularly get sold. Whilst the high-street banks that everybody knows are too big to be bought and sold wholesale, smaller parts of them and other smaller banks are fairly constantly being bought, sold, and traded for various purposes. Now, you might think “so what” to this...

How many banks are there? So many more than you think.

If you asked your average business owner to name as many banks as they could think of, we’d bet that they’d struggle to get past 10, and almost definitely wouldn’t hit 20. Once you get past the big high-street banks like Barclays, Lloyds and HSBC, most peoples’ knowledge of banks dries up. This is emblematic...

AI and Fintech – Can you trust a computer with your loan?

There’s a strong argument being made to start leaving many major finance decisions to AI. An AI can react faster, spot trends sooner and analyse more data than any human – it’s easy to see why it’s a sensible decision. But is this wise for the broking world, where personality can mean so much? Fintech...

Do small businesses really need to get bigger? How business expansion factors into finance.

Every business needs finance. It’s practically a fact of a business owner’s life. At some point, your business will want to grow, and you’ll need the funds to make it happen. However, there’s a prevailing myth about what comes with finance that we’d like to talk about. That myth is the idea that every business...

What does it mean to “know” a bank? How brokers and bankers do business together.

At ASC, we’re proud of knowing our lenders. We think we have a right to be – not many brokers have 50 years of experience doing business. So, where some might only know the banks that won’t lend, we know the banks that will. But what exactly does “knowing” a bank mean? How does it...

A Manufactured Issue – Financing Medium Businesses

Here at ASC, we write a lot about the work we do with small businesses. When you work in the SME sector, it’s a reasonable thing to do – 95% of companies in the UK have fewer than 5 staff. However, just because the majority of businesses are small, it doesn’t mean that we should...

Variety is the spice of life – you have more options than you think!

When people think finance, they tend to default to a small, set series of options. Ask your average business owner what they think of as “finance”, and you’ll get one of two answers most of the time – a secured business loan, or a mortgage. It’s easy to see why – they’re the “standard” options...

Leasehold businesses can still find finance. Have a look at our article with Daltons Business to see how.

Funds, safe and sound – Why you need to be sure of Security in Finance

Businesses are, by their nature, volatile creatures. Location, the economy and even the time of the year can serious affect a businesses’ fortunes, and nowhere is this truer than in the SME world. A small business doesn’t have the safety nets that major corporations do, and a turn in the financial winds can easily spell...

Becoming a broker – your path to happiness?

There are a lot of benefits to working with ASC. Our personal approach, our wide network of contacts, our dedicated SME focus – these are just some of the reasons small businesses nationwide use ASC to help achieve their dreams. But there is another side to ASC – our Regional Directors themselves! We’re always on...