British Business Bank announces new lenders under the Bounce Back Loan Scheme for smaller businesses

The following lenders have been newly accredited under different variants of the CBIL scheme:

Covid-19 Loan Schemes

Bounce Back Loans Scheme (BBLS)

BBLS is a demand-led scheme offering lending that targets small and micro businesses, providing loans from £2k up to 25% of the business’ turnover with a maximum loan of £50k. Providing lenders with a 100% government-backed guarantee, the standardised application form means a faster process with many loans becoming available within days.

The Bounce Back Loans Scheme enables businesses to obtain a six-year term loan at a government set interest rate of 2.5% a year. The government will cover interest payable in the first year.

Information on eligibility criteria and how to apply can be found on the British Business Bank website.

Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS)

CBILS is delivered through more than 60 British Business Bank accredited lenders, and is designed to support the continued provision of finance to UK smaller businesses (SMEs) during the Covid-19 outbreak.

CBILS is a demand-led scheme offering lending to smaller businesses with turnover of up to £45m. The scheme supports a wide range of business finance products, including term loans, overdrafts, invoice finance and asset finance facilities. Invoice finance and asset finance facilities are available from £1k to £5m, while term loan and revolving credit facilities are available from £50k to £5m (the lower limit for these has increased from £1k following the introduction of BBLS). The government makes a payment to cover interest and lender-levied fees under CBILS for the first 12 months.

Detailed information on CBILS can be found on the British Business Bank website.

Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CLBILS)

CLBILS is a demand led scheme targeted at larger businesses with a turnover of more than £45m. It offers term loans, revolving credit facilities, invoice finance and asset finance. Businesses with turnover between £45m and £250m can apply for facilities of up to £25m, while businesses with turnover of over £250m can apply for facilities of up to £50m.

Future Fund

The Future Fund will support the UK’s innovative businesses currently affected by Covid-19. These businesses have been unable to access other government business support programmes, such as CBILS, because they are either pre-revenue or pre-profit and typically rely on equity investment. The scheme will deliver an initial commitment of £250m of new government funding through convertible loan notes which will be unlocked by private investment on a match funded basis. The government scheme, which will be developed in partnership with the British Business Bank with the intention of launching for applications in May, will initially be open until the end of September.

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 make finance markets for smaller businesses work more effectively, enabling those businesses to prosper, grow and build UK economic activity. 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 programmes are supporting more than £7.2bn of finance to over 93,000 smaller businesses (as at end of September 2019).

As well as increasing both supply and diversity of finance for UK smaller businesses through its programmes, the Bank works to raise awareness of the finance options available to smaller businesses:

The British Business Bank Finance Hub provides independent and impartial information to high-growth businesses about their finance options, featuring short films, expert guides, checklists and articles from finance providers to help make their application a success. The new site also features case studies and learnings from real businesses to guide businesses through the process of applying for growth finance.

As the holding company of the group operating under the trading name of British Business Bank, British Business Bank plc is wholly owned by HM Government and is not authorised or regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) or the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The British Business Bank operates under its own brand name through a number of subsidiaries, none of which are authorised and regulated by the FCA.

British Business Bank plc and its principal operating subsidiaries are not banking institutions and do not operate as such. A complete legal structure chart for British Business Bank plc and its subsidiaries can be found on the British Business Bank plc website.