Pictured: Steve Walker, Chief Executive of ART
Local small business lender ART (Aston Reinvestment Trust),
established in 1997 to fill a gap in the market left by the banks,
has reached £10m in loans delivered.
ART provides loans to enterprises that are based in Birmingham
and Solihull and have a viable project that has not been able to be
supported, either in part or at all, by a bank. It is a Community
Development Finance Institution (CDFI), owned by its members - both
borrowers and social investors - with a remit to lend in a specific
area to help boost the local economy.
Commenting on reaching the £10m milestone, Steve Walker,
Chief Executive of ART said: "We are here to enable small
businesses to access the finance they need and it's good to see how
our loans have helped small and medium-sized, commercial and
not-for-profit businesses, operating in almost every market sector
to survive, start up or grow over the years. We are often the last
vital piece of the jigsaw in a finance package lending alongside
others, but in some cases we lend on our own. Either way we enable
business activity to happen that otherwise wouldn't."
ART was a pioneer of its model of raising a mixture of public
sector and private sector funding to lend locally and its way of
providing finance for enterprise has not only been replicated
throughout the UK, it has also been closely researched by visitors
to its Aston Cross base from all over the world including Japan,
Korea and Europe. It lends between £10,000 and £50,000,
with an average loan size of £22,000.
Since the credit crunch in 2008 ART and other similar lenders in
the West Midlands, who all belong to the Fair Finance Consortium,
have seen demand rise substantially, but the good news is that all
still have funds available to support businesses in their areas and
especially to help them create or preserve jobs.
"It seems that every day we are hearing about a new initiative
to help small businesses access finance, but these are not yet
on-stream. ART, and the other CDFIs in the West Midlands, have
money available right now," says Steve.