The Full Circle Approach

At BCDF, we always want to help where we can. When a client is inelligible for funding or is not ready for investment, it can feel like a major setback for them. With most lenders, this results in the door being slammed in the client’s face. When this happens, the client doesn’t clearly understand why they have been unsuccessful and they don’t know how they can resolve it.

We do things differently. When a client is unsuccessful in accessing the funding they need, we offer a timeline of actions that will help them to succeed in the future. Sometimes just a few minor changes can help a business to access a wider range of solutions, at more competitive rates, further down the line. We call this our ‘full circle’ approach.

In March of 2023, a local bank referral partner introduced us to a client in need of finance support, a small but fast-growing courier business. The bank was unable to support the client because they had recently been issued a CCJ and as a result their Delphi Score was just 6/100. This was due to a missed payment on a fuel card that the client wasn’t aware of. A simple mistake that had severe consequences.

With the client we explored some options and found that only sub-prime solutions were available. We agreed that these high interest, short term options were not what they needed to reach their growth ambitions. It was clear that this CCJ was preventing them from accessing the right funding and so we agreed to resolve this first.

We provided the client with some guidance on how to get this CCJ removed and improve their business credit profile. They then went away to fix this.

In May of 2024, over a year later, we had an email early one morning from the client requesting some funding to support their cashflow. They explained that the CCJ had been removed and the credit bureaus had fixed their credit score. In this time, the business had grown to £2.5 million turnover and now operated over fifty courier vans.

By 5 o’clock the same day, we had arranged an affordable, short term working capital loan for them and resolved their cashflow issue. The client was grateful both for the fast turnaround on the funding, and the guidance we provided over a year ago on resolving their credit issues. Our holistic support had completed the ‘full circle’, as the client left us disappointed but with a plan, and later returned to us with greater success in accessing the funding they needed.

This is evidence of how our ‘full circle’ approach is effective, and it proves why offering guidance and nurturing relationships with clients who are not yet ready or eligible for funding is still so important.