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British Business Bank support schemes delivers over £75bn of loans to 1.6m smaller businesses

Press release 25 March 2021

  • £46.5bn Bounce Back Loan Scheme
  • £23.3bn Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme
  • £5.3bn Coronavirus Larger Business Interruption Loan Scheme
  • £1.2bn Future Fund

Today the government published new statistics that show businesses across the UK have to date benefitted from 1,630,155 government-guaranteed loans worth £75.1bn to support their cashflow during the crisis through schemes delivered by the British Business Bank.

This includes 1,531,095 Bounce Back Loans worth £46.5billion, 98,344 loans worth £23.3 billion through the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme and 716 loans worth £5.3billion through the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme. New figures for Bounce Back Loan Scheme Top-Ups reveal 101,666 loans have been approved valued at £0.9 billion.

The Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme, the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme and the Bounce Back Loan Scheme all close on 31 March 2021. The new Recovery Loan Scheme will open for applications on 6 April 2021.

In addition, figures for the Future Fund show that, to date, there has been £1.2bn worth of convertible loans approved for 1,236 companies since the fund opened for applications on 20 May. This sum has been matched by at least the same amount from third-party investors. The Future Fund closed for applications on 31 January 2021.

 Cumulative number of approved facilitiesCumulative value of approved facilitiesCumulative number of applications
Bounce Back Loan Scheme1,531,095£46.5bn2,056,587
Bounce Back Loan Scheme

Top-Ups

N.B. value of top-ups also

included in the headline

figure of BBLS value of

facilities approved		101,666£0.9bn*174,291
Coronavirus Business Interruption Loans Scheme98,344£23.3bn233,247
Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loans Scheme716£5.3bn1,130
Future Fund1,236£1.2bn1,846
  • The management information for CBILS, CLBILS and BBLS is reported on behalf of British Business Bank accredited lenders as shared directly with HMT by close of business on 22 March 2021. The Future Fund data is reported on behalf of the British Business Bank.
  • The applications figure includes approved applications, those applications that are still to be processed, applications that have been declined and those applications that may turn out not to be eligible or cases where customers will decide not to proceed. For CBILS, this number will also include a number of applications that have subsequently been converted to applications for the BBLS scheme. For Future Fund, the number of applications includes only those where both a company and their lead investor have submitted information.
  • Future Fund opened for applications on 20 May 2020. Provided that applicants provide the information required during the application process in a timely manner, it is expected that the process will take a minimum of 21 days from initial application to funding being made available. Convertible loans are reported as approved at the point the Convertible Loan Agreement document is issued by Future Fund for signature. The time to applicants subsequently receiving funds will depend on the speed with which they complete the documentation.
  • *Value of top-ups also included in the headline figure of BBLS value of facilities approved. The value of BBLS facilities approved includes the extra value from a BBLS loan which has subsequently been ‘topped-up’ to a higher amount. 1 topped up loan will still be reported as 1 loan to avoid double counting the number of facilities approved. (e.g. if there were previously 2 facilities worth £40,000 each and subsequently 1 had been topped up to £50,000, this would now be reported as 2 facilities worth a total of £90,000). It was announced on 2nd November that BBLS borrowers who took out less than their maximum under the scheme rules (the lesser of £50,000 or 25% of their turnover) in their first loan application will now be allowed to top-up their loan up to the maximum.

Notes to editors

Covid-19 Loan Schemes

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. Initially, £250 million was made available by the government for investment through the scheme, to be matched by private investors, with the Treasury making clear the amount could be increased if needed. Developed by government and delivered by the British Business Bank, the Future Fund launched for applications in May and closed on 31 January 2021.

Bounce Back Loan 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 and standardising the application form has led to a faster process with many loans becoming available within days. The Bounce Back Loan 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. The scheme will be open until 31 March 2021.

Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS)

CBILS is a demand-led scheme offering lending to smaller businesses with turnover of up to £45m. Invoice finance and asset finance facilities are available from £1k to £5m, while term loans and revolving credit facilities are available from £50k to £5m. The government makes a payment to cover interest and lender-levied fees under CBILS for the first 12 months. The scheme will be open until 31 March 2021.

Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CLBILS)

CLBILS is a demand led scheme targeted at larger businesses with a turnover of more than £45m. CLBILS can be used to support term loans, revolving credit facilities, invoice finance facilities and asset finance facilities. The maximum amount available through CLBILS to a borrower and its group is £200m. Term loans and revolving credit facilities over £50m are offered by CLBILS lenders which have secured additional accreditation. The maximum size for invoice finance facilities and asset finance facilities is £50m. Companies borrowing more than £50m through CLBILS are subject to further restrictions on dividend payments, senior pay and share buy-backs during the period of the loan. The scheme will be open until 31 March 2021.

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 were supporting nearly £8bn of finance to almost 94,800 smaller businesses at end of June 2020. Since March 2020, the British Business Bank has launched four new Coronavirus business loan schemes, delivering tens of billions of pounds of finance to 1.6m businesses.

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 businesses about their finance options, featuring short films, expert guides, checklists and articles from finance providers to help make their application a success. In light of the coronavirus pandemic and EU Exit, the Finance Hub has expanded and it now targets a wider business audience. It continues to provide information and support for scale-up, high growth and potential high growth businesses, but now provides increased content, information and products for businesses in survival and recovery mindsets. The Finance Hub has been redesigned and repositioned to reflect this, during this period of economic uncertainty.

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 through a number of subsidiaries, none of which are authorised or regulated by the FCA or the PRA.

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.

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