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British Business Bank agrees £100m ENABLE Guarantee transaction with specialist agricultural bank Oxbury

Press release 01 November 2023

  • £100m transaction provided to help Oxbury support SMEs in the agriculture sector
  • Will enable Oxbury to originate up to £45m of new lending to farming and food businesses 

The British Business Bank has agreed a £100m ENABLE Guarantee transaction with leading fintech Oxbury Bank, the only UK bank with a singular focus on farmers, food production and the rural economy.

This will be one of the first ENABLE transactions whereby the guarantee provides protection to an existing portfolio of lending. This means that the capital benefit of the guarantee is achieved from day one, allowing the lender to originate around £45m of additional lending to SME agricultural businesses.

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 – OxburyEarth – 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.

Oxbury’s existing capital stack includes a £25m Tier 2 capital facility from British Business Investments secured in August 2022, which has so far supported over £100m of additional lending to SME farming and food businesses.

By offering tailored funding and data solutions, Oxbury is helping farming and food businesses to make improvements in efficiency and productivity, reduce carbon footprints, produce renewable energy, grow high quality crops and livestock for home consumption and export, as well as helping to diversify income streams.

In September 2022, the bank launched Oxbury NewGen – a new, first-of-its-kind initiative to provide funding for new farming ventures and the advice to give a new generation of farmers the best possible chance of success.

Oxbury also has a committed and embedded approach to Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance issues.

Oxbury’s “Responsible Impact” approach aims to actively help farmers to adapt to the rapid changes in land transformation and food production that are required in the face of the climate change and nature crises.

We’re delighted to be expand our relationship with the British Business Bank to support more lending to SMEs across the farming and food system. The ENABLE Guarantee will directly support a further £45m in lending to SMEs and is a further boost to the rapid progress Oxbury has made in becoming the bank of choice for farmers the length and breadth of Britain. As the UK’s only dedicated agriculture bank Oxbury is on a mission to help farmers and food producers address the twin challenges of food security and the transition to low-carbon nature-friendly production. Our relationship-led approach, enabled by our proprietary Oxbury Earth Agtech banking platform, is essential in serving the needs of the small and medium business that are the lifeblood of this crucial part of the British economy. - Tim Coates Co-Founder and Chief Customer Officer at Oxbury Bank
We’re delighted to have completed this transaction with specialist UK agricultural bank Oxbury. Allowing Oxbury to seed the transaction with existing lending allows them to provide additional lending to small businesses more quickly. - Reinald de Monchy Managing Director, Guarantee and Wholesale Solutions, British Business Bank

Further Information

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Notes to editors

About the British Business Bank

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 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 programmes support over £12.4 billion 1  of finance to more than 90,000 smaller businesses 2 .

As well as increasing the supply and diversity of finance for UK smaller businesses through its programmes, 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 £80.4 billion in finance to 1.67 million 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 authorised or regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) or the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). A complete legal structure chart for the group can be found at the British Business Bank.

About Oxbury

Oxbury is the UK’s first and only AgTech bank, sitting at the heart of the technology revolution sweeping British farming, and the only bank with a singular focus on the rural economy.

Oxbury was founded with a completely fresh vision for how a bank can support the UK’s critical farming and food ecosystem, addressing the finance gap created by traditional banks reducing critical working capital to farm businesses and removing specialist agriculture expertise.

With a proprietary fintech platform combined with decades of banking and farming experience, Oxbury offers clients more tailored, flexible and reliable finance, along with unique data solutions that helps farmers deliver improved sustainability, provenance and productivity across the farming and food supply chain.

British farming and food is going through a period of radical transformation, and farm businesses require more tailored finance, technology and data solutions to help them make the generational shifts required to improve sustainability, provenance and production standards across the farming and food supply chain.

Oxbury Bank Plc is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority (Financial Services Register number: 834822).

For more information about Oxbury, visit oxbury.com.

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