Has the so-called credit crunch had any significant impact on franchisee lending?

There are two aspects to this: one being the availability of funds, the other being the effect of the financial turmoil on house prices, and therefore the available equity that a potential franchisee has to secure all or some of their loan.  There is little doubt that lending decisions are taking longer, and this may well have to do with the problems that some banks are having getting their hands on enough money to lend. Not that adding up all the money lent to all franchisees in any given year would be likely to cause any of the major banks a headache. However, they do have to consider all the other lending they do and allocate funds accordingly.  In recent years many franchisees have chosen not to go the traditional route of business loans and have simply chosen to raise funds by increasing their mortgage. With house prices slowing down and re- mortgages becoming harder to arrange, there is little doubt there will be an adverse effect on franchisee lending.  However, if this means that only the better franchisors can find support for their better prospects from the better lenders, this may be no bad thing.