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British Business Bank agrees ENABLE Guarantee transaction of up to £350m with Allica Bank

Press release 18 May 2026

  • The transaction of up to £350m will support asset finance to smaller businesses across the UK
  • This is the first ENABLE Guarantee bank transaction to include another investor, with Sona Asset Management participating alongside the British Business Bank to increase Allica’s lending capacity
  • The pioneering structure aims to catalyse private sector investment into UK challenger banks through risk-sharing transactions.

The British Business Bank has agreed an ENABLE Guarantee transaction of up to £350m with Allica Bank. This is the first ever ENABLE Guarantee transaction with a bank to include a junior investor within the structure, significantly strengthening the programme’s proposition and opening a new channel for private sector investment into UK specialist and challenger banks.

With Sona Asset Management, a UK-based credit asset manager, participating as the junior investor, the structure is designed to free up additional regulatory capital compared with a traditional ENABLE Guarantee transaction. This will provide Allica with the capacity to support a significantly larger portfolio of asset finance for thousands of established UK businesses.

Over its lifetime, the transaction is expected to support up to £700m in lending by Allica, helping smaller businesses acquire critical equipment, vehicles and machinery to power their expansion.

Allica is a digital bank built especially for established businesses with between 5 and 250 employees. Since obtaining its banking licence in 2019, Allica has lent over £4bn to established UK businesses and raised over £5bn in deposits. A report last year (.PDF, 5.2MB) by economic research consultancy Oxford Economics revealed that for every £1m Allica lent to established businesses, it contributed £2.4m in GDP, 35 jobs, and £600,000 in tax revenue.

Under the transaction’s structure, the British Business Bank will guarantee the senior position, while Allica will retain a portion of the credit risk across each underlying agreement.

The ENABLE Guarantees programme is designed to encourage additional lending to smaller businesses. Participating institutions are incentivised by a government-backed guarantee which supports defined portfolios of debt finance in return for a fee.

The programme is open to all UK banks, UK branches of foreign banks, asset finance providers and asset-based finance providers, as well as certain other categories of lenders which lend, or intend to lend, to viable small and medium-sized businesses operating in the UK.

Peter Kyle, Secretary of State for Business and Trade, said:

To grow our economy, firms need the financial firepower to turn their bright ideas into thriving businesses - especially smaller companies looking to expand.

That's why this transaction with Allica Bank is so exciting - meeting the huge ambition of the UK’s entrepreneurs by unlocking hundreds of millions in lending.

Michael Strevens, Managing Director, Structured Financial Institutions Solutions, British Business Bank, said:

We’re delighted to complete this ENABLE Guarantee transaction with Allica. This transaction provides an innovative new structure aimed at boosting the impact of the programme and demonstrating the value of public–private collaboration in supporting SME finance.

We hope this transaction can unlock more risk-sharing opportunities for challenger and specialist banks’ lending to UK smaller businesses and act as a template for future transactions. This transaction will also help unlock the potential of smaller businesses and stimulate vital growth in Nations and regions throughout the UK.

Richard Davies, CEO at Allica Bank, said:

This innovative ENABLE Guarantee transaction is an important milestone for Allica, potentially enabling us to lend up to £700m of additional funding to established UK businesses to support their growth.

These businesses are Britain's real economy, and this investment will mean new jobs and boosted economic activity in our communities up and down the country.

We're grateful to the British Business Bank and Sona for their support in unlocking this investment.

John Aylward, Founder and CIO of Sona Asset Management, said:

We are delighted to partner with the British Business Bank and Allica on this pioneering ENABLE Guarantee transaction.

Sona’s participation demonstrates confidence in Allica’s underwriting discipline and reflects our conviction in the transaction as an attractive risk-adjusted investment opportunity. We see it as a differentiated opportunity to deploy capital into a high-quality, specialist lending platform.

In addition, our investment reflects the clear alignment of interests within the structure and enables a significant expansion of lending to established UK businesses. If successfully replicated, this model has the potential to create a scalable channel for institutional capital to support the UK real economy over the long term.

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At last year’s Spending Review, capacity of the ENABLE Guarantees programme was increased from £2bn to £5bn, an uplift of £3bn. The increased capacity will enable the Bank to support more finance providers to scale their support to smaller businesses, increasing the supply of finance and supporting the growth of a more diverse smaller business finance market.

Further Information

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Notes to editors

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 drive economic growth by helping smaller businesses get the finance they need to start, scale and stay in the UK. 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’s core programmes support £23bn 1  of finance to almost 64,000 2  smaller businesses. 

British Business Bank plc is a public limited company registered in England and Wales, registration number 08616013, registered office at Steel City House, West Street, Sheffield, S1 2GQ. It is a development bank wholly owned by HM Government. British Business Bank plc and its subsidiaries are not banking institutions and do not operate as such. 

With the exception of BBB Investment Services Limited they are not authorised or regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority or the Financial Conduct Authority. BBB Investment Services Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. A complete legal structure chart for the group can be found at british-business-bank.co.uk.  

The transaction described above does not constitute or imply any endorsement, warranty or recommendation by the UK government, the British Business Bank plc, its subsidiaries or any other party of Allica Bank Limited or Sona Asset Management or their products or services. 

The ENABLE Guarantees programme is managed by British Business Financial Services Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of British Business Bank plc, on behalf of, and with the financial backing of, the Secretary of State for Business and Trade.

About Allica Bank  

Allica is a fintech bank built especially for established businesses with between 5-250 employees. These businesses make up a third of UK employment and turnover.

Allica Bank is on a mission to give established businesses the banking they deserve. That means a business bank account that rewards business owners for using it, a relationship manager whose name and number they actually know, and powerful technology that makes their life easier, not harder.

Since it opened for lending in 2020, Allica has scaled fast, becoming both profitable within three years and one of the fastest-growing fintechs and private companies of all time in the UK. Over the past five years, Allica’s balance sheet has scaled to nearly £4bn of established SME loans, and over £5bn of deposits.

In February 2026, Allica Bank completed a $155m Series D funding round, valuing the business at $1.2bn. It is aiming to achieve a 10% share of the established business market in the UK by 2028.

Read more at allica.bank.

About Sona Asset Management

Sona Asset Management is a European credit asset manager and regarded as leveraged finance experts in Europe. The company was founded in 2016 by John Aylward, following his two decades at some of the most established sell-side and buy-side global enterprises. Sona’s experienced portfolio managers specialise in investing across the credit spectrum with a primary focus on European markets. The firm seeks to generate positive, uncorrelated returns in all markets and puts emphasis on capital preservation and outperformance at times of stress. As of May 2026, Sona manages c.$17.5bn AUM on behalf of institutional investors, with a team of more than 160 people across London, New York, Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong and Tokyo.

Read more at sona-am.com.

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