Christ Yoder
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The British Business Bank has accredited several lenders for emergency lending programs aimed at supporting businesses with Covid-19, but has yet to approve more peer-to-peer lending platforms.
The bank has approved the accreditation of five lenders under the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Program (CBILS), four under the Coronavirus Significant Business Interruption Loan Program (CLBILS) and one as part of the rebound loan program (BBLS).
CBILS provides unsecured loans of up to £ 250,000 to small and medium-sized businesses. Growth Lending, inFund, Invocap, NEL Fund Managers and Triple Point have been approved to implement the program.
CLBILS, which caters to large companies with a group turnover of over £ 45million, has a maximum loan limit of £ 20million. New CLBILS lenders include: Greensill, Metro Bank, Secure Trust Bank and OakNorth Bank, which was also recently approved to provide CBILS.
In addition, BBLS has provided loans of up to £ 50,000 and is backed by a 100% government guarantee.
Read more: Bounce lending dominates as lenders fund £ 27.5bn in coronavirus business support
Paragon Bank will join the 19 other BBLS lenders that have been accredited since it opened last month.
After their approval, each lender will put in place the necessary operations to start lending under the scheme and will shortly confirm the dates from which it will be ready to start receiving requests.
Read more: MarketFinance v Funding Circle: How Their CBILS Products Compare
“Our accredited lenders have seen incredible demand for Covid-19 business loan programs since they became available,” said Keith Morgan, managing director of British Business Bank.
“Accrediting these additional finance providers means additional support for small business clients and pursues the British Business Bank’s long-term goal of providing more diverse sources of finance to small businesses. “
The fast-track accreditation process the British Business Bank has put in place for coronavirus lending programs means it has been able to more than double the number of CBILS lenders since the program began, increasing their number from 41 to 86.
According to the Treasury, banks and business lenders have £ 34.9 billion distributed to date through the three main loan programs supported by the government.
