More than £25million-worth of credit applications by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in eastern England are being rejected by banks every month, according to alternative lender Fleximize, which is based Ipswich.

Fleximize claims that £153.08million of credit applications in the four counties of Suffolk, Essex, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire and the unitary authority area of Peterborough were rejected during the first half of 2015.

This includes £59.83m in Essex, £31.73m in Norfolk, £28.31m in Suffolk, £27.28m in Cambridgeshire and £5.93m in Peterborough.

Fleximise also estimates that, since the financial crash in 2008, the value of money lent to businesses in the region by alternative finance companies totals £169.14m, including £66.11m in Essex, £35.06m in Norfolk, £31.28m in Suffolk, £30.14m in Cambridgeshire and £6.55m in Peterborough.

Max Chmyshuk, founder and managing partner at Fleximize, said: “East Anglia and Essex is a hive of business activity, and we estimate its GDP is around £172.89billion a year, which is bigger than countries such as Croatia, Serbia, Jordan and Jamaica.

“However, like any thriving economy, it needs access to credit to grow and our research also suggests that many financially viable SMEs in East Anglia and Essex are being turned down for finance because they do not fit the often inflexible criteria applied by many banks.

“At Fleximize, we use more in-depth analysis of a company’s financial performance and its customer feedback on online trading platforms such as Amazon and eBay to determine whether or not we will lend. This has meant that we have lent to a number of financially viable companies which have previously been rejected by the banks.”

Fleximize says that its lending during the first half of this year increased by more than 200% compared with the same period in 2014.

The company’s s analysis also reveals that 15.8% of the business enterprises in the region are in the professional, scientific and technical sectors, followed by 14.5% in construction.

The third biggest sector is business administration and support services, which account for 7.6% of enterprises in the region.

Bank of England extends the Funding for Lending Scheme: Page 2