At Fashion Rider, we know that approaching a bank for any sort of reason can be daunting. You may need that crucial finance loan or looking to them to help start your new business, but fear the risk of no or you just don’t know where to start. Well here at Fashion Rider we’ve spoken to Phil Tarimo, Regional Director, at Yorkshire Bank to give us a little insight into what they look for when someone like you comes through their doors. Whether you’re unsure of the different accounts a bank offers or whether you should even set up with a bank, we hope to answer a few of these questions below.
What can you (a bank) do to help support my business’ growth plans?
At Yorkshire Bank we offer a range of financial support that we can tailor to your business’ needs. Too often businesses think that the only way we can help is by a straightforward loan, when that isn’t the case. In fact, a simple loan is probably not the right solution in a lot of cases.
We’ll take the time to understand your business, the market you’re in, the plans you have and the barriers you need to overcome. Once we’ve done that we’ll propose the right products and services to help you achieve that growth. That could include Invoice Finance, to help you manage cashflow, Payments technology so that you can take payments online, over the phone or at your premises, Asset Finance to fund new equipment of vehicles and even Private Banking for yourself.
What are you looking for when a business approaches you for finance?
For us to help your business, we need to understand what you’re about. In most cases the first thing we’ll be looking at is your business plan. Most small businesses only draw up a business plan when they need one to support an application for business finance. But thinking though your business plans and committing them to writing can play an important role in ensuring you achieve your goals.
Your business plan needs to be a professional and honest view of your business and the market it’s operating in. Start with a brief history of the business. When did it start trading and what progress has it made to date? Who owned the business originally? What is the current ownership structure?
Describe your product or service without using technical jargon. What makes your product or service different? What benefits does it offer? What are its disadvantages? How do you plan to develop the business? If necessary, you can offer the technical detail for people who want to know more in an appendix to the plan.
Do you offer any support for businesses that goes beyond finance?
Absolutely, we see our role not just to provide financial options but to help businesses connect with each other, and to help them find support on the kinds of issues that they face on a day-to-day basis.
We regularly run networking and advice sessions, either with our own experts or in partnership with other local businesses, such as lawyers. This November we’ll be running over 200 of these events as part of our own Business Week.
On our website we have free resources to help businesses with a range of topics; from business plans to social media and from understanding cashflow to collecting debts. We’ve also linked up with the Federation of Small Business on their Better Business Support package of tools and products that covers topics like HR, Finance, Health & Safety and Management.
More details of the support Yorkshire Bank can offer your growing business is available at www.ybonline.co.uk/business or by calling 0800 032 3971
One final note:
Whether you are choosing a new accountant or web designer to work with Fashion Rider always recommends you do your research and consider all your options.
If you’re still unsure don’t forget Fashion Rider is here to help. Please don’t hesitate in getting in contact and let us take the stress out of it for you. Also if there are any different areas we can help in just let us know.
Do you have any positive or negative experience of banks?
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