Bank of Scotland: SMEs put £1 billion aside per month

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Bank of Scotland: SMEs put £1 billion aside per month

Mon 7th Jul 2008

More than three-quarters of small and medium enterprise (SMEs) owners prefer to keep their money than invest it, research by the Bank of Scotland has found.

The survey of over 1,000 such people revealed that 76 per cent did not want to make immediate investment in the business due to the uncertainty of the current economic climate.

In the next 12 months, 38 per cent intend to put money aside for future investment in the business while 37 per cent want to put money in savings to earn interest.

The Bank of Scotland says that if every small business with deposits in the Big Four banks (HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and Lloyd's TSB) were to switch to its Total Business Deposit Account, SMEs would receive an extra £585 million a year to their bottom lines.

Almost a quarter of small firms in the north-east have to charge their customers extra because of rising fuel costs, nebusiness.co.uk has reported.

The research, by Bibby Financial Services, found that over 70 per cent said they were affected by fuel prices.

Mike Heslop of courier business NE Express told the paper his company had begun a fuel surcharge of 5.8 per cent.

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