Newly-appointed CBI Scotland Director Hugh Aitken will use his first speech in his new role to set out the "big picture challenges" facing Scottish firms as they attempt to raise finance and pursue growth.

 

Mr Aitken, who took up his position in January, is the keynote speaker at a 'Financing the Future' conference in Edinburgh next week. He will talk about measures to help ambitious businesses access the funds they need to compete in an increasingly globalised marketplace, and in turn build a stronger Scottish economy over the next five to ten years.

His speech comes on the back of a recent Scottish Government report which highlighted that obtaining finance was cited by 27 per cent of SMEs as an obstacle to the success of their business, with a further 38 per cent having some difficulties in obtaining finance in the first source that they approached.

Stuart Lunn, chief executive of crowdlending platform LendingCrowd, which is co-hosting the event in Edinburgh, commented: "Accessing finance and growing brands has never been more important for small businesses in Scotland. We believe flexible and well-regulated crowdlending is part of the solution in supporting a successful base of strong SMEs for the Scottish economy."

Paul Farley, chief executive of Dundee-based mobile gaming tech firm Tag Games, is among next week's speakers. He said: "The banks wouldn't touch us. They didn't understand our business. We have approached many banks over the years but it just wasn't possible to get this sort of funding. We urge people to consider financing through crowdlending, as without the help of platforms like this our expansion plans simply wouldn't have been able to happen."