According to an industry survey by lender Asset Advantage, 49% remain neutral about the country’s outlook and 28% are pessimistic, with the remainder feeling upbeat.
Commercial brokers pinpointed a range of pressures impacting economic prospects, such as government taxation, business confidence, increasing operating costs and inflationary pressures.
Cash flow and uncertainty were highlighted as two key issues.
Brokers said decisions were taking longer as businesses were ‘feeling the pinch’, which meant they had to be cautious how they invested money. Inflationary pressures were highlighted as the reason for business owners’ lower profits, affecting their ability to borrow money and service loans.
Despite this, commercial brokers were still broadly positive about their business prospects for the coming 12 months, expecting strong demand for both asset finance and business acquisition funding among small and medium-sized enterprises.
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Gary Thompson (pictured), sales director at Asset Advantage, said: “While there’s still very much strong demand for business funding, there’s no doubt that many businesses are feeling cautious in the current climate. Big factors such as higher operational costs, inflationary pressures and both geopolitical and economic uncertainty all continue to have an impact on business confidence and influence borrowing and investment decisions.”
