Business bad debt runs at £780,000 every day

Almost £780,000 written off every day in bad debts towards end of last year, as businesses struggled to pay bills

Almost £780,000 was written off every day in bad debts towards the end of last year, as businesses struggled to pay bills. 

The total level of insolvent business debt in the UK grew by around £72m in the final three months of 2020, according to data firm Red Flag Alert – or £779,997 per day. 

This was a huge rise on the same period in 2019, when companies faced average daily write-offs worth £152,934. 

Heavy weight: The total level of insolvent business debt in the UK grew by around £72m in the final three months of 2020

Heavy weight: The total level of insolvent business debt in the UK grew by around £72m in the final three months of 2020

Bad debt is loans that probably will not be repaid because the company is insolvent. 

The total level of written-off debt jumped to £1.9billion in 2020. 

Red Flag Alert’s managing director Mark Halstead said it was ‘indicative of the serious bad debt problem. 

The big problem for many failing companies is that they will find it very difficult to borrow as they are saddled by coronavirus loans which they’ve spent surviving the pandemic’.

source: dailymail.co.uk