SME impact research 2025: a message from iwoca’s founders
5
min read
SME impact research 2025: a message from iwoca’s founders
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A message from our founders, Christoph Rieche and James Dear as part of our SME impact research with Capital Economics:
“Small and medium-sized businesses play a crucial role in our economies. In both the UK and Germany, they represent over 99% of all businesses and are responsible for more than 50% of all employment. Yet, for too long, they’ve not been given the access to financing they need to grow to their full potential, on the contrary, they are held back by a financial system that is not builtfor them.
This is evidenced by the fact that loan growth to SMEs has been anaemic over the last decade. In the UK, the outstanding stock of SME loans today is around 14% lower than in 2015. One of the main motivations behind starting iwoca was the prospect that our financing enables this powerful group to create economic growth, and thereby prosperity for all of us. As a reflection of our ambition to fix SME lending, we’ve set our mission to finance 1 million businesses.
In the last year alone, our £1.3 billion in lending to UK SMEs supported £2.8 billion in economic value (GVA) and 49,800 jobs. In Germany, our €260 million of funding supported €584 million in GVA and 8,930 jobs.
Behind these numbers are entrepreneurs who are seizing opportunities, hiring new staff, and strengthening their local economies. They are the hidden champions of our economies. This report analyses the direct link between our funding and our customers' success. Through analysis of thousands of business current accounts and randomised tests, we have found that receiving an iwoca loan is associated with a 19% average boost to a company’s monthly inflows, 12 months after raising financing. This powerful finding confirms that when SMEs have access to finance, they create tangible revenue growth.
We’re proud of the impact we’ve already had to drive change, and we see lots of opportunity to further grow the SME economy in the years to come.”
RESEARCH: Full report from Capital Economics can be found here.
