British Business Bank doubles existing ENABLE Guarantee transaction with Oxbury Bank to £200m, including innovative new green finance structure.
The original £100m transaction was announced in November 2023 – “supporting more than £140m of lending into the rural economy in less than six months.”
The enhanced guarantee includes “pricing benefit, which incentivizes Oxbury to provide lending that will improve sustainability performance across the rural economy.”
The British Business Bank has agreed “an £100m increase to its existing ENABLE Guarantee transaction with leading fintech Oxbury Bank – a UK bank with a singular focus on farmers, food production and the rural economy.”
The original £100m transaction, “announced in November 2023, and which was the first to be fully pre-seeded, has supported over £140m of finance for c.170 smaller businesses in the rural economy.”
This additional £100m will extend that support, “bringing the total transaction to £200m and with scope to increase further, subject to approvals.”
Oxbury has a strong track record “supporting farm businesses to improve their sustainability, and the extended ENABLE Guarantee will now include a specific enhanced incentive for Oxbury to promote more lending that meets certain sustainability criteria.”
Chester-based Oxbury launched as “a fully regulated bank in February 2021, offering a range of flexible lending and asset finance solutions tailored to the specific needs of farm businesses.”
Oxbury combines its own proprietary digital banking platform – Oxbury Earth – with a team of dedicated relationship managers “providing a wealth of agricultural experience and banking advice for clients.”
In less than three years, Oxbury bank has “exceeded £750m in total committed and in-progress lending.”
In addition, it has attracted £1bn in savings deposits “from farm businesses and consumers wanting to support the rural economy and has reached break-even profitability.”
The bank has a target to achieve a £1bn balance sheet in 2024.
The Chester-based bank is “backed by institutional agriculture and AgTech investors, as well as other stakeholders in the sector.”
In total Oxbury has raised in excess of £120m “in investment since inception with further capital-raising initiatives planned to support ongoing lending growth.”
Since first announcing the original ENABLE Guarantee last year, they have been pleased at the pace at which they’ve been “able to support around 170 SME farming businesses across the country, with over £140m of vital funding to help support and grow their businesses.”
By doubling the original transaction – and “including the new sustainability incentive – Oxbury will be able to rapidly increase the impact of our lending across the farming and rural economy.”
As covered, the British Business Bank is “the UK government’s economic development bank.
Established in November 2014, its mission is “to drive sustainable growth and prosperity across the UK and to enable the transition to a net zero economy, by improving access to finance for smaller businesses.”
Its remit is to design, deliver and efficiently “manage UK-wide smaller business access to finance programmes for the UK government.”
The British Business Bank’s core programs support “over £12.4bn Read footnote text1 of finance to more than 90,000 smaller businesses ”
As well as increasing the supply and diversity of finance for UK smaller businesses through its programs, the Bank works to “raise awareness of finance options available to smaller businesses.”
The British Business Bank Finance Hub provides “independent and impartial information to businesses about finance options, featuring short films, expert guides, checklists and articles from finance providers to help make their application a success.”
The British Business Bank is also responsible “for administering the government’s three Coronavirus loan schemes and its Future Fund, together responsible for delivering £80.4bn in finance to 1.67m businesses.”
These schemes are now closed “to new applications.”
British Business Bank plc is a public limited company “registered in England and Wales, registration number 08616013, registered office at Steel City House, West Street, Sheffield, S1 2GQ.”
Wholly owned by HM government, the Bank and its subsidiaries “are not banking institutions and do not operate as such.”
They are not authorized or regulated “by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) or the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).”