Nucleus Commercial Finance

Nucleus Commercial Finance launches apprenticeship product




Peer-to-peer (P2P) lender Nucleus Commercial Finance has launched a new product designed to ease the burden of the apprenticeship levy for training providers.

The product will prepay the 10% employer contribution directly to the training provider rather than requiring them to wait for staged monthly instalments.

The upfront funding is designed to remove the responsibility of collecting the initial cost away from training providers, as well as ensuring that the remainder of the government contribution from Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) is secure.

“This policy change forces colleges and training providers to think and act like businesses with all the associated financial skills of debt collection, bad debt management and credit control,” said Phillip Speed, education specialist at Nucleus.

“Leaving them to the mercy of employer purse strings could put a real strain on teams and take valuable time away from providing top-quality workplace learning.

“This upfront finance option takes away the jeopardy of training providers sinking with no funding at all.”

Nucleus will also perform full credit control, with all records of collection for each employer to be contained within one report.

This simplified audit mechanism will be ready for ESFA, removing the need for education providers to invest in additional specialist resources themselves.

“We are proud to be leading the charge in piloting a type of finance structure that we believe will go on to benefit many more training providers around the country,” added Lorraine Heath, deputy principal for business at Basingstoke College.

“The support from Nucleus will ensure that our team can focus on building relationships with businesses and employers, ensuring that we are offering the right products and continuing to deliver excellent service to those we work with.”

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