OakNorth announces British Business Bank ENABLE Guarantee of £133m
Press release
OakNorth has today announced its participation in the ENABLE Guarantee programme, securing a guarantee of £133m from the British Business Bank, the UK government’s economic development bank. OakNorth will use the guarantee to strengthen further its lending support to fast-growth businesses and established property developers and investors.
The ENABLE Guarantee programme is designed to encourage banks to increase their lending to smaller businesses by reducing the amount of capital required to be held against such lending. Under an ENABLE Guarantee, the UK Government takes on a portion of the lender’s risk on a portfolio of loans to smaller businesses, in return for a fee.
OakNorth, which has recently been recognised as the fintech with the highest valuation Read footnote text 1 in Europe, has lent over £3bn to businesses across the UK without a single default to date, which has helped create over 10,000 new homes (of which c.9,000 are affordable homes and social housing units) and 13,000 new jobs Read footnote text 2 . While many larger banks are retrenching from the SME lending market due to ongoing economic uncertainty, OakNorth has seen this as an opportunity to continue helping ambitious British businesses to grow.
Since our launch in September 2015, we have been committed to helping businesses achieve their growth ambitions. The ENABLE Guarantee will enable us to lend even more to SMEs across the UK and help create new homes and jobs in the process.
- Rishi Khosla, CEO and co-founder of OakNorth
A key aim for the British Business Bank is to help diversify finance markets for smaller businesses, providing greater choice and competition. I’m therefore very pleased to continue our strong relationship with OakNorth, which is still a relative newcomer to the UK marketplace. The British Business Bank has so far committed guarantees for live portfolios of over £800m Read footnote text 3 under its ENABLE Guarantee programme, and I look forward to seeing OakNorth continuing their support for smaller UK businesses with this guarantee.
- Patrick Magee, CCO of the British Business Bank
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1
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/08/softbanks-vision-fund-pumps-390-million-into-uk-fintech-oaknorth-valuing-it-at-2point8-billion.html
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2
Figures based on deals OakNorth completed since launch in September 2015 to date
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3
(as at end October 2018)
Further Information
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 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 is currently supporting more than £5.9bn of finance to over 82,000 smaller businesses (as at end of September 2018).
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 new 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, one of which is 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.
The guarantee from the British Business Bank to OakNorth does not amount to any endorsement or warranty from the British Business Bank plc, or the government of the UK.
ENABLE Guarantee is administered by British Business Financial Services Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of British Business Bank plc.
About OakNorth Bank plc
OakNorth provides fast, flexible and accessible debt finance (from £500k to £45 million) to fast-growth businesses and established property developers / investors.
Since its launch, the bank has:
- Lent over £3bn, directly helping with the creation of 10,000 new homes and 13,000 new jobs in the UK
- Raised deposits from more than 40,000 saver accounts
- Won numerous awards and been recognised as one of the UK’s fastest-growing businesses being listed on the Leap 100, Tech City UK’s Future Fifty, and Fintech City’s Fintech50.
It is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority.
Visit oaknorth.com for more information.
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