British Business Bank Support Schemes Deliver Loans to Smaller Businesses

Today, the government published new statistics that show businesses across the UK have to date benefitted from 1,593,620 government-guaranteed loans worth £72.9bn to support their cash flow during the crisis through schemes delivered by the British Business Bank.

This includes 1,500,466 Bounce Back Loans worth £45.6billion, 92,449 loans worth £22 billion through the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme, and 705 loans worth £5.3billion through the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme. New figures for Bounce Back Loan Scheme Top-Ups reveal 93,216 loans have been approved valued at £0.83 billion.

In addition, figures for the Future Fund show that, to date, there has been £1.1bn worth of convertible loans approved for 1,140 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 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 February 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 for 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.