NEARLY half the owners of small and medium sized enterprises in Glasgow have had to raid their savings to develop their businesses amid widespread dissatisfaction with banks, research has found.
In a survey of owners of small and medium sized enterprises for the LDF unsecured lending business, 47 per cent of respondents in Glasgow said they had been forced to use their savings to start or grow their businesses.
Some 37 per cent of respondents in Edinburgh had drawn on their savings to start firms.
One in five respondents in both cities had borrowed money from family and friends to invest in their businesses.
Around a third of people running SMEs in Edinburgh said they had gone without a regular monthly salary due to cash flow issues, compared with 16 per cent in Glasgow.
Some 56 per cent of respondents in Glasgow and 66 per cent in Edinburgh criticised the UK’s banking system for not being “business friendly”, against 52 per cent across the UK.
The survey found funding issues were seen as the biggest challenge for people starting businesses in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Businesses in Glasgow required around £40,000 start up funding on average, compared with £23,000 in Edinburgh and £27,000 across the UK.
Respondents in Glasgow and Edinburgh were most likely to be active in the professional services and finance sectors respectively.
Excessive red tape was seen as a big obstacle by firms in both cities.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here