The £2m–£100m Blind Spot: The Part of the UK Economy Risk Models Can’t See
According to the Office for National Statistics, there are 147,920 UK companies with turnover between £2m and £20m. That’s only the lower half of the mid-market. Add the firms between £20m and £100m, and you have a vast slice of the economy that insurers underwrite, reinsure and invest in every day. Almost none of it […]
Energy Costs as a Credit Signal: What SME Utility Data Tells You About Default Risk Before the Accounts Do
According to the Insolvency Service, one in every 200 companies in England and Wales entered insolvency in the 12 months to August 2026. Few of those failures came out of nowhere. The warning signs were there, just not in the documents lenders read. Filed accounts arrive months after the year they describe. By the time […]
Good Score, Weak Evidence: How a Strong Headline Rating Can Hide Material Risk Gaps
The FCA is due to publish its final rules on sustainability ratings providers this quarter. The reason it’s stepping in should make every underwriter pause before trusting a single number. According to the FCA’s own research, 55% of ratings users are concerned about how ratings are developed, and they point to outdated or inaccurate data […]
Smaller Lender, Same Data Gap: Why Building Societies and Challengers Can’t Buy Their Way Out of SME Climate Data
The PRA’s SS5/25 implementation deadline was four months ago, and one question keeps coming up in smaller lenders’ risk committees. What does “proportionate” actually look like when you don’t have a 40-person sustainability team? A smaller balance sheet doesn’t mean a smaller Data Gap in your SME book. Proportionate Doesn’t Mean Optional According to the […]
The £2m–£100m Blind Spot: The Part of the UK Economy Risk Models Can’t See
Picture the UK economy as a map that lights up wherever a company’s risk profile is clear to insurers. The largest businesses glow brightly, because they sit inside mandatory climate-related financial disclosure, which only applies above 500 employees and £500m turnover. Below that line, the map goes dim. Not because the companies are dark, but […]
When a Borrower Misses Its Transition Target: What Banks Do Next
The compliance certificate lands on the relationship manager’s desk. Two of the borrower’s three sustainability performance targets have been missed, and the margin step-up is already written into the facility agreement. The mechanics are settled. What happens after them usually isn’t. According to the Loan Market Association, its updated draft provisions for sustainability-linked loans, published […]
Climate Data Quality Is Becoming a Capital Question: What Prudential Expectations Mean for SME Portfolios
In December 2025, the Prudential Regulation Authority raised the bar. Supervisory Statement SS5/25 moved climate risk out of the “awareness” phase and into core financial workflows: governance, credit underwriting, capital planning, provisioning. Building on SS3/19, the PRA has introduced SS5/25, establishing the expectation for firms to integrate climate risk into core financial workflows using climate […]
Data Lineage and Auditability: Why Regulated Firms Need to Know Where Every Metric Came From
Ask an underwriter where a counterparty’s flood exposure figure came from, and most can answer. Ask where its sustainability score came from, and the trail often goes cold somewhere between a spreadsheet and a survey response from two years ago. That gap is about to become a live assurance problem, not a background one. ISSA […]
Greenwashing Risk in SME Green Lending: How Banks End Up Exposed by Someone Else’s Numbers
By June 2026, every UK bank must show the PRA a credible gap analysis against SS5/25, the supervisory statement that now treats climate risk as core prudential risk. For banks with sustainability-linked loans across their SME book, the hardest gap to close isn’t governance. It’s the emissions number sitting behind the loan. Risk teams reviewing […]
The Data Handshake at Renewal: What Brokers and Underwriters Should Be Asking Commercial Clients
Is a business quietly moving through its renewal season with insurers who can’t actually see the risk they’re pricing? According to Aon’s UK insurance market insights, underwriters are now placing far greater weight on financial resilience, governance quality and ESG disclosures during primary underwriting, and are pulling back from risks where transparency is weaker. The […]