British Business Bank approves another four lenders for CBILS

Written by Ruby Hinchliffe
28th April 2020

British Business Bank (BBB) has approved another four lenders to help distribute grants from the UK government’s Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS), which is designed to prop up small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) during the coronavirus.

Allied Irish Bank (AIB), alternative lender ThinCats, savings and loan specialist Paragon Bank, and independent asset-based lender IGF have all landed the green light to start issuing CBILS grants.

There are still many alternative lenders vying to get approved

These new joiners, which can lend between £10,000 and £5 million to small businesses, take the BBB’s total number of authorised lenders to more than 50.

In the last two weeks, the BBB has accredited an additional four UK banks – Co-Operative Bank, OakNorth Bank, Starling Bank, and Cynergy Bank – to issue loans under the scheme, and has authorised the UK’s biggest alternative lender Funding Circle as the first loan marketplace to issue CBILS grants.

“Accredited lenders have continued to see an incredible demand for CBILS, so the bank is helping to meet that demand and provide even more choice for smaller businesses,” says the BBB’s CEO Keith Morgan.

Despite this announcement, there are still many alternative lenders vying to get approved and further help the small businesses – which they already help all year round – through the crisis.

A group of 166 British lenders led by WorldPay’s founder Nick Ogden, ClearBank and Funding Options called on the UK government last week to provide £5 billion government funding to small and medium-sized enteprises (SMEs) amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Together, the consortium of fintechs said they could help 33,000 UK businesses receive liquidity in the “critical days before end of month hardship”, offering up to £150,000 to help fix their immediate cash flows.

“The key to untying the Gordian knot is to bring more alternative finance providers, business-to-business (B2B) marketplaces and other fintech organisations into the solution to complement the big high street banks,” says alternative lender Funding Option’s chief marketing officer David Keene.

The BBB has also approved ten new lenders for the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CLBILS), designed for businesses which make more than £45 million.

These lenders include Bank of Scotland, Barclays, Clydesdale Bank & Yorkshire Bank, Danske Bank, HSBC, Lloyds Bank, NatWest, Santander, RBS and Ulster Bank.

The BBB says it is continuing to review applications from other lenders for CBILS.