Broker Vision 2024 

2023 was a year of change and growth for the broker team at Funding Circle, and as we start our 2024 journey, it’s important to look to the market when strategising for the year ahead. 

We saw inflation fall globally in late 2023, and there is still some hope in the market for inflation to hit the 2% Bank of England target this spring, despite recent uptick. However, interest rates have risen dramatically and remained high, which was unfortunately not aided by the recent news on the unchanging base rate. We’re seeing this put pressure on many of our borrowers, which is why we are going to be focused on offering more ways to support our customers in 2024. At the start of this year, we were still able to reduce our rates on loans which is something many other lenders were unable to do, and this  has enabled  us to ultimately say yes to more businesses so far in Q1. 

We have some exciting product changes that we’re looking to roll out this quarter exclusively in the broker team, including some changes to our personal guarantee process – which we’re anticipating will have an impact in some cases on our speed of lending approval. It’s also worth noting that following our broker feedback forum in December, many of our brokers suggested improvements in how we process and service your applications, as well as ideas surrounding products we aren’t currently offering. This input has ultimately had a big impact on how we have shaped our roadmap for the coming year. For example, one piece of feedback we’ve taken on is the hunger for products from alternative lenders with different forms of security. We’re currently in the early stages of modelling this, and we’re hopeful it’s something we can deliver on in 2024. 

In spite of increased pressures in the market, our borrowers are a tough bunch, and demand from SMEs for finance remains robust. The role that our brokers play in ensuring that we achieve our company goals is crucial, and arguably has never been more important given the economic challenges. As our most trusted and experienced partners, we will undoubtedly weather the storm together. We’re seeing business confidence continuing to rise, and in light of this, we’re committed to ensuring that we are able to keep increasing the number of broker customers that we say yes to.