Vince Cable’s Business Bank: A broker’s viewpoint

Abstract

To address the difficulties businesses face with obtaining funds for investment, the Business Secretary, Vince Cable, announced the setting up of a Business Bank, and the Angel CoFund. The analysis in this article reveals that all is not as it would seem. Far from being a public sector intervention, the role of the bank is to encourage the development of private sector solutions. The Angel CoFund has had some successes but a company needs to ‘secure the interest’ of a first time investor. The article argues that German-style Sparkassen are needed: that is, regional banks that provide the seed money for SMEs to get off the ground and grow. Without something like this business growth in the UK will be wanting.

Keywords

Angel CoFund Business Bank EU State Aid regional banks SME funding Sparkassen

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References

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