British Business Bank expands eligibility criteria for its ENABLE Funding programme to increase finance for smaller businesses

The British Business Bank launched its ENABLE Funding programme in November 2014, with the aim of improving the provision of asset and lease finance to smaller UK businesses. The programme was originally designed to help resolve funding constraints for smaller leasing and asset finance providers, which are often unable to access cost efficient funding from capital markets sources.

Since launch, £202m has been committed through the ENABLE Funding programme to three providers, which has facilitated over £200m of leasing and asset finance to around 4,000 smaller businesses.

Building on this success, the British Business Bank has today updated its ENABLE Funding Request for Proposals to allow peer-to-peer lenders which facilitate the provision of finance to smaller businesses to apply for the programme. Opening up the ENABLE Funding programme to these providers will give them a similar opportunity to access capital markets more efficiently, increasing the amount of finance that they can provide to smaller UK businesses. Other terms of the programme, including minimum origination levels, remain the same.

If you would like to find out more about the ENABLE Funding programme, please contact the British Business Bank Wholesale team.

If you are a lender to smaller businesses, but don’t currently meet the criteria for ENABLE Funding, you can find out more information online about other British Business Bank programmes or those of our commercial subsidiary, British Business Bank Investments Ltd