Business Bank announces four new lenders for CBILS

The British Business Bank has approved four new lenders for accreditation under the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) – The Co-operative Bank, Cynergy Bank, OakNorth Bank and Starling Bank.

The new lenders will be rapidly scaling up their operations to try and meet demand and will want to announce their ability to lend as soon as possible.

More than 80% of the UK’s smaller businesses have a finance relationship with the 40+ existing CBILS accredited lenders.

The British Business Bank has increased the size of its accreditation team to manage the volume of interest from new lenders such as debt funds, invoice finance providers, asset finance lenders.

Keith Morgan, CEO, British Business Bank, said: “Our accredited lenders have seen an incredible demand for CBILS in the past few weeks, so we are helping to meet that demand and provide even more choice for smaller businesses by approving additional lenders for accreditation to the scheme. These new lenders will be able to deploy vital funding and get additional finance flowing to smaller businesses across the UK as quickly as possible.”

Arkle Finance, Close Brothers and Secure Trust Bank – were accredited under the Enterprise Finance Guarantee (EFG) scheme and have also been accredited under CBILS and are ready to take applications from smaller businesses. Coutts has been accredited for CBILS as part of RBS Group’s existing accreditation.