Monday 24th March, 2014

New research conducted by Sitevisibility has found that "invoice finance" was the most popular business search term in Google during 2013.

The search term was 218% more popular than "factoring" or "asset based lending" for example.

Sitevisibility marketing manager Simon Burslem said: "This research confirms the shift away from traditional bank lending to small business which has shrunk by a quarter since 2011."

He added that alternatives to the more traditional forms of lending were helping many SMEs to keep their heads above water. The jump in the number of organisations at least searching for more information about this practice hints at the amount of pressure on companies across the UK.

Invoice finance involves companies being able to get access to cash in lieu of invoices that have not yet been paid.

This spike is despite the help that the Bank of England has tried to inject into the economy with the (now widely acknowledged to be limited in its success) Funding for Lending Scheme.

In fact, levels of invoice finance have increased by 16 per cent year-on-year, hitting £62.5 billion in the last three months of 2012.