AS THE banks and SME lobby groups argue over whether or not funding is being made available to small businesses here, some alternative lenders are eagerly eyeing up the market.

Liverpool-based Bibby Financial Services is one such group, having earlier this year put together a fund of €50 million for Irish SMEs to tap into via invoice financing.

Bibby has offices in Dublin and Belfast and is busy spending €200,000 on advertising and roadshows to drum up business.

Graham Byrne, its Irish sales director, told me this week that it had allocated about €15 million of the fund to date. “This is an alternative to a strict overdraft facility and is less security-driven,” he said.

Founded more than 200 years ago, Bibby is a big player in the UK market, making a group profit of €19 million last year.

Some though would argue that its charges – an administration fee of 0.9 per cent of turnover and a lending rate of 5 per cent – are high.

The company is also an unregulated entity.

Given the current tight economic climate, Bibby will no doubt attract business in Ireland as cash-strapped SMEs seek out working capital.

Competition is never a bad thing and there’s probably room in the market for everyone.

But given the billions in taxes we handed over to prop up the banks, surely it would be better if they were the ones doing the lending to our SMEs.