Posted: Monday, 15 December 2025 @ 10:27
A positive note to end the year from Rivers. While there has been a lot of anxiety over the last year, we wanted to end 2025 on a positive note, because for all the challenges in the economy, we have seen some significant silver linings at Rivers, which speak to the eternal strength of the SME community and all those who serve it.
The financial context
A news release from the Finance & Leasing Association (FLA) in October noted that total UK asset finance new business in August 2025 fell by 3% compared with the same month in 2024. Furthermore, in the eight months to August 2025, new business was just 1% higher than in the same period last year.
In addition, the CBI Financial Services Survey, released in October, wrote that: "Financial services firms reported that businesses volumes declined in the quarter to September at the fastest rate since June 2020." Adding: "average spreads fell at a fast rate in Q3, placing pressure on margins. Against this backdrop, profitability continued to decline in the quarter to September, though at a slower pace than in Q2, while headcount fell firmly."
By contrast, having analysed our own numbers based on calendar years (as opposed to financial years) to get a direct comparison to the FLA data, Rivers was up 26% in the eight months to August 2025 compared to last year and 16% up for the month of August itself.
Delivering funding that serves SMEs
As a business, at Rivers we are very much the tortoise as opposed to the hare. We believe in being steady (although not necessarily slow) to be as resilient as a business can be in an ever-changing world. We are also believers in doing what we say we're going to do - being consistent, reliable, and trustworthy. For example:
- We don't approve funding applications until we have all the information
- When we agree the interest rate on borrowing it remains the same for the duration of the loan term, regardless of the wider market
- We give responses promptly, are consistent in our minimum requirements and we always aim to be helpful
That is not to say we're not dynamic - we also recognise the need to evolve, and this is where our team, made up of a combination of industry stalwarts and those from a variety of other commercial and professional backgrounds, has been extremely helpful. By maintaining a clear focus of delivering products and services that we believe answer the practical needs of SME businesses, we have developed a portfolio of funding services over our 15 years to date, including asset finance, leasing, short- and medium-term business loans, and incubator block discounting.
We don't do these things because we think we're being particularly clever, but because we are acutely aware that we are responsible for the interests of multiple stakeholders - our clients, our team, our investors, and our brokers. We take that responsibility extremely seriously, so when we take an action, implement a new service, or even issue a line of funding, we always have in our mind's eye the question - is this responsible?
Valuing our relationships
While we would say a lot of our positive outcomes this year are the result of luck, we don't think that would be fair to our team, who put in so much hard work, or indeed those who have kindly brought us their business this year - brokers, partners, and clients themselves - many of whom have remained unerringly loyal for many years.
We are also fans of continuous learning - both from where we have made good decisions and where we could have made better ones. Our hope is that the solid values we have cleaved to have underpinned steady growth in a year where growth has been far from guaranteed. They are not particularly glamorous principles, or glossy marketing headlines. However, they are genuine, honest, and reliable - and in a world where none of us know what's happening from one day to the next, we think that having relationships you can trust, with people who make it clear where you stand, is worth its weight in gold.
To all those who have brought us business this year - we thank you - we are under no illusions about how important our brokers, partners, and clients are to us. We hope to continue supporting you in whatever ways we can in 2026.