The drastic measures taken to contain the coronavirus pandemic are necessary to protect lives, but they have also resulted in unprecedented disruption to the economy and to our daily existence. Most businesses are reliant on a steady flow of customers, reliable supply chains, and access to working capital. With individuals largely confined to their homes, many businesses face severe challenges – in some cases, entire industries have simply had to shut down.
In effect, COVID-19 has forced the authorities to put the economy into deep freeze. The government strategy to deal with this disruption has been to provide businesses and individuals with as much financial assistance as possible in order to cushion the impact of the inevitable downturn. The hope is that while the recession will be deep and painful, the ensuing recovery – as and when we return to our previous routines – will be both rapid and strong enough to enable the majority of people and firms to re-turn to something approaching their pre-outbreak trajectory.
In line with this aim, our goal here at Weatherbys Private Bank is to help private clients, both existing and new, to keep going through this difficult period, so that when the economy thaws out again, they are ready.” While many of the large banks are understandably struggling to maintain operations, we are a relatively focused and nimble organisation that means we have been able to make a largely seamless transition to working within the lockdown guidelines. Our services remain almost entirely as usual: all our operational systems are fully functional and we are easily contactable by phone or email.
We have not delayed or called a halt to any lending transactions previously in process, and we are very much open to writing new lending business: extending overdrafts, providing bridging loans, or offering mortgages at our normal interest rates. With clients increasingly more worried about security of deposits rather than the interest rates they are securing, we have seen an influx of cash deposits – Weatherbys remains highly liquid with very strong financial ratios, which underpins our ability to continue writing new lending business as before.
One benefit of being a family-owned, service-focused bank is our short lines of communication, which mean that decisions can be made and turned around rapidly. And while many lenders are currently struggling to offer secured lending because of the inability to perform property valuations, we have never solely considered property values when lending – if other aspects of the proposition are strong, we will take a view on valuations where possible.