But behind the eye-catching headline figure are thousands of small business stories that we are delighted to have played a part in, from purchasing new premises from which to grow out their business, releasing capital to support growth ambitions or simply refinancing existing credit arrangements — it is what we entered the marketplace to do: giving SME customers better outcomes and better service.

Doing more for businesses

The last few years have been exceptionally challenging for businesses, who have battled with heightened inflation, the impact of war in Europe, a technical recession and of course the pandemic.

Atom was a proud participant in government guarantee schemes, such as the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) and its successor, the Recovery Loan Scheme (RLS) — in RLS alone, Atom provided funding worth more than £240 million to small businesses.

While the RLS has now concluded, we have wasted no time in securing accreditation for its replacement, the Growth Guarantee Scheme, which will run until March 2026. 

It is aimed at supporting around 11,000 businesses in achieving access to the funds they need in order to grow and succeed, and our involvement is further proof of our determination to back British businesses.

Continuous improvement

It has not always been easy. As a digital bank, we’ve sought to bring our continuous — improvement culture to bear in our product and service proposition — and broker feedback has been critical in helping us do that.

In the last year alone we have introduced more than 100 significant improvements to our broker portal and underwriting process, with the aim of providing a smoother experience to advisers and their clients.

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Those changes were the direct result of our constant dialogue with brokers. Their insights, suggestions (and yes, occasionally criticism!) has directed us to areas of friction in the journey where improvements could be made which would lead to tangible benefits for customers.

A perfect example was our introduction of the ability for a broker to take charge and instruct a valuation at any point before the issuance of an approval in principle. This intervention can have a dramatic impact on the time taken for a case to complete — in some cases it has meant a reduction of up to seven weeks.

The results of the changes made as a result of broker dialogue are clear to see. Over the last 12 months, the elapsed time between application and the issuing of an AIP has been reduced by 94%.

As a result AIPs are now usually delivered on the same day.

Similarly, there has been a 61% reduction in the time between application and offer, meaning that the current timeframe from the acceptance of an AIP to the offer being issued is below 10 working days on average.

There’s more to do

Reaching the £1bn milestone is significant, a good opportunity for introspection not only on how far we have come as a bank but the job still at hand.

Because there is no doubt that SMEs across the country are crying out for more help in achieving their dreams and aspirations.

Our recent SME Pulse research found that almost two-thirds of commercial brokers are seeing increased demand from their business clients, driven by rising confidence, falling inflation and the prospect of base rate reductions in the months ahead.

These business owners have compelling plans, but they will only be able to achieve them if they can access affordable and timely external funding. Atom bank will be there to support them in doing just that.