The ministerial department of government known as UK Export Finance has recently partnered with Female Founder Finance to help assist businesses owned by women to access support for export finance to help them grow their operations and compete internationally.
Female Founder Finance is a business group that launched in summer 2023. Since then, it has handled funding valued at over £115 million. The business group works solely with enterprising women who founded businesses of their own and found themselves disadvantaged when pursuing access to financial products like hospitality loans or loans for accountants.
According to research carried out by the independent Rose Review, just 6% of women in the UK are running their own enterprise, compared to approximately 15% of women across the Atlantic in Canada, and close to 11% in the US. The Netherlands and Australia also surpass the UK with more than 9% of women-owned businesses. The report estimated that the UK economy could grow by £250 billion if women could match their male counterparts in obtaining business investment.
The new partnership between the two entities aims to streamline the process of referring eligible companies into each another’s finance programmes, to effectively reduce missed opportunities for female business owners.
For instance, Female Founder Finance can guide its clients to UK Export Finance’s shorter-term products aimed at small exporters, like bond support guarantees, capital guarantees, and export insurance policies. UK Export can, in turn, refer its female clients to the business group when appropriate.
This article was published for informational purposes only. Any organisations, individuals and events mentioned do not involve or directly relate to AJL Finance as a company.