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British Business Bank’s Growth Guarantee Scheme provides over £250m of lending to UK smaller businesses

Press release 20 November 2024

  • Growth Guarantee Scheme reaches £250m lending milestone in just four months

  • Two thirds of facilities have been provided outside of London and the South-East

  • 96% of facilities have gone to businesses with fewer than 50 employees

The British Business Bank today announces that its Growth Guarantee Scheme has supported more than £250m of finance to smaller businesses, since its launch as a successor to the Recovery Loan Scheme in July 2024.

The Growth Guarantee Scheme is designed to support access to finance for UK smaller businesses as they look to invest and grow. The scheme works with a wide range of financial products and lenders, including term loans, overdrafts, asset finance, invoice finance and asset-based lending.

The Government-backed guarantee scheme, with 50 accredited lenders, has provided finance to a broad diversity of smaller businesses across the UK’s Nations and regions. Approximately two thirds of guaranteed facilities have been provided to businesses located outside of London and the South-East.

The wholesale and retail sector has been provided the highest proportion of facilities, at 17% of the total. This was followed by manufacturing, at 15% of facilities, whilst construction, and professional and scientific, accounted for 12% and 9% respectively.

96% of facilities have been provided to businesses with fewer than 50 employees, with this finance used for expansion and growth, including asset finance, capital expenditure, start up and working capital.

A quarter of the total lending from the Growth Guarantee Scheme has been provided under Asset Finance. This reflects the growth of Asset Finance as a finance option for businesses, seen in the wider marketplace over the last few years.

Reinald de Monchy, Co-Chief Banking Officer, Products, British Business Bank said:

This is a fantastic achievement for the Growth Guarantee Scheme in such a short amount of time. Since its launch, we wanted to maintain the momentum we generated with the previous scheme and offer a diverse range of finance types across the UK. We hope to continue this into 2025 and support more smaller businesses as the scheme accredits more delivery partners.

Simon Goldie, Director of Business Finance & Advocacy, Finance & Leasing Association (FLA) said:

FLA members are deploying the Growth Guarantee Scheme to fund small and micro businesses across the UK. It’s a great achievement to have over £250m now powering more investment, productivity and value throughout the economy, and shows the importance of the risk-sharing model to both funders and their customers.

Martin McTague, National Chair of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) said:

FSB campaigned hard to secure the Growth Guarantee Scheme as a crucial successor to the Recovery Loan Scheme, and we are delighted to see it has delivered £250m of funding to small businesses since its launch. We’re excited to see what the future holds and look forward to many more small businesses being enabled to scale up by the scheme, helping to fuel economic growth and recovery across the UK.

The Growth Guarantee Scheme is designed to support access to finance for UK smaller businesses as they look to invest and grow and is expected to support around 11,000 smaller businesses between 1 July 2024 and 31 March 2026. 

The Growth Guarantee Scheme provides the lender with a 70% government-backed guarantee against the outstanding balance of the facility after it has completed its normal recovery processes. The borrower always remains 100% liable for the debt. The British Business Bank administers the Growth Guarantee Scheme on behalf of the Secretary of State for Business and Trade.

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’s core programmes support over £17.4bn 1 of finance to almost 64,000 2 smaller businesses.

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 £80.4bn 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 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 www.british-business-bank.co.uk.

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