The British Business Bank has announced six newly approved lenders for accreditation under the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS), three new lenders for accreditation under the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CLBILS) and two new lenders for accreditation to the Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS).
New CBILS lenders include; 365 Business Finance, Folk2Folk, Handelsbanken, LendingCrowd, Maxxia, and Nucleus Commercial Finance. The firms will soon provide financial support to smaller businesses across the UK that are struggling during the COVID-19 crisis.
Additional CLBILS lenders include; Close Brothers, ThinCats and HSBC Bank plc, which is a separate entity from the previously-accredited HSBC UK. These lenders will be able to provide finance to midsized and larger UK businesses with a group turnover of more than £45 million – the upper limit for the existing smaller-business focused CBILS.
Coutts and Arbuthnot Latham will join the other 21 BBLS lenders who have been accredited since the scheme opened.
While Fintechs were slow to be included in the COVID-19 programs since the different schemes were announced a growing number of Fintechs have been qualified to offer lending under the government initiative.
Keith Morgan, CEO of the British Business Bank, stated:
“Our accredited lenders continue to see high levels of demand for Covid-19 business loan schemes. Accrediting these additional finance providers means further support for smaller business customers and continues the British Business Bank’s long-term objective to offer more diverse sources of finance to smaller businesses.”
Statistics published by the UK government indicate that more than one million businesses have benefitted from over £42 billion in loans and guarantees through schemes delivered by the British Business Bank.
This includes:
- 967,321 Bounce Back Loans worth £29.5 billion,
- 52,275 loans worth over £11 billion through the CBILS
- £2.3 billion through the CLBILS
The British Business Bank notes that it has been able to more than double the number of CBILS lenders since the scheme’s launch, increasing the number from 41 to 99.
The Bank continues to review applications from a wide range of lender types.
