British Business Bank reaches £5bn lending milestone for its ENABLE structured guarantee programmes
Press release
- Lending in the Nations and regions outside London and the South East totals more than £3bn
- Smaller businesses in the North West, East Midlands and East of England received a total of c.£500m in each region
- Construction and housing sectors are two of the biggest beneficiaries, with £1.2bn of funding and 5,866 homes built, with ENABLE Build’s support.
The British Business Bank has reached the landmark milestone of £5bn of lending across its structured guarantee programmes, ENABLE Guarantees and ENABLE Build, with more than £3bn delivered to businesses outside London and the South East. A total of £500m of funding has been provided in each of the North West, East Midlands and East of England regions.
The ENABLE Guarantees programme is designed to encourage additional lending to smaller and medium-sized businesses. Participating institutions are incentivised by a government-backed guarantee to support defined portfolios of debt finance in return for a fee.
Smaller and medium-sized businesses across the UK have benefited significantly from the programme. The structured guarantee programmes have provided over £2.3bn of support to the construction and housing sectors, including c.£1.2bn under ENABLE Build. Other notable sectors benefiting include hospitality, with over £270m, and agriculture, with over £260m.
Since the first transaction in 2017, these structured guarantee programmes have supported both bank and non-bank financial institutions to unlock more lending to smaller and medium-sized businesses.
The ENABLE Guarantees programme is open to all UK banks, UK branches of foreign banks, asset 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 enterprises operating in the UK.
The ENABLE Build programme operates in a similar manner to the ENABLE Guarantees programme, but is focused on encouraging additional lending to smaller and medium-sized housebuilders in the UK.
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, said:
Our work with the British Business Bank is one of many levers we are pulling to go further and faster in our mission to deliver economic growth for the entire country and put more money in people’s pockets.
This £5bn lending milestone is our Plan for Change in action. Not only has this programme delivered much-needed investment to areas outside London and the South East, it has supported the construction and housing sectors to get Britain building again.
Michael Strevens, Managing Director, Structured Financial Institutions, British Business Bank said:
It’s incredibly rewarding to reflect on the volume of lending to smaller and medium-sized businesses and the number of homes built that we’ve helped enable over the years. Our focus has always been on evolving our support to strengthen UK businesses, and it’s encouraging to see those efforts bearing fruit. Looking ahead, we’re focused on being more proactive — working closely with lenders to understand their challenges and tailor solutions that fit. That’s how we’ll unlock the next £5bn — and do so with greater pace and purpose.
Adam Bovingdon, Head of Property Development, United Trust Bank (UTB) said:
UTB helped the British Business Bank develop its ENABLE Guarantees programme to be suitable for supporting housebuilding and was the first lender to take advantage of it when it was made available to the sector in 2017. We subsequently signed up to ENABLE Build and I am delighted to say that earlier this year UTB surpassed £1bn of ENABLE guaranteed lending across both schemes, delivering nearly 450 loan facilities to SME housebuilders and supporting the creation of around 4,700 new homes. Bearing in mind that during this period lenders and housebuilders have also had to contend with the Covid-19 pandemic and considerable economic and political volatility, it’s clear just how important this support has been. ENABLE is an excellent example of successful state and private sector cooperation.
Ravi Anand, Managing Director of ThinCats said:
The British Business Bank’s ENABLE Guarantees programme has been a huge contribution to the £1bn of funding we have undertaken post COVID. The scheme ‘does what it says on the tin’— enabling senior bank appetite to allow ThinCats to fund growth initiatives of UK mid-sized SMEs and in turn enabling a positive contribution to UK GDP.
Brian Berry, Chief Executive of the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) said:
It's positive to see that small housebuilders have taken advantage of ENABLE schemes. Financing is one of the top issues holding back small developers from building new homes and the more finance options there are the better. The ENABLE Build scheme helps aid diversification of the UK’s housing market, which is essential to deliver the Government's ambition of 1.5m new homes.
Tables of sectors and regions
Data as at 31st December 2024*
| Sectors | Number of SMEs | Value of Flow |
|---|---|---|
| A - Agriculture, forestry and fishing | 308 | £269.76m |
| B - Mining and Quarrying | 5 | £6.23m |
| C - Manufacturing | 231 | £148.33m |
| D - Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply | Redacted | £0.92m |
| E - Water supply; sewerage, waste management and remediation activities | 12 | £12.36m |
| F – Construction | 699 | £1708.94m |
| G - Wholesale and retail trade; Repair of motor vehicles and Motorcycles | 513 | £800.78m |
| H - Transportation and storage | 75 | £50.26m |
| I - Accommodation and food service activities | 210 | £273.89m |
| J - Information and communication | 15 | £73.61m |
| K - Financial and insurance activities | 57 | £367.7m |
| L - Real estate activities | 349 | £655.23m |
| M - Professional, scientific and technical activities | 50 | £128.78m |
| N - Administrative and support service activities | 117 | £245.63m |
| P – Education | 7 | £6.85m |
| Q - Human health and social work activities | 41 | £165.57m |
| R - Arts, entertainment and recreation | 11 | £14.44m |
| S - Other service activities | 20 | £34.74m |
| U - Activities of extraterritorial organisations and bodies | 7 | £22.25m |
| Unallocated | 302 | £162.99m |
| Regions | Number of SME's | Value of flow |
|---|---|---|
| North East | 110 | £172.58m |
| North West | 289 | £544.08m |
| Yorkshire and Humber | 274 | £348.6m |
| East Midlands | 273 | £516.5m |
| West Midlands | 264 | £388.75m |
| East England | 330 | £561.44m |
| London | 365 | £1094.03m |
| South East | 427 | £832.35m |
| South West | 273 | £401.21m |
| Wales | 177 | £155.95m |
| Scotland | 151 | £217.17m |
| Northern Ireland | 30 | £32.34m |
| Unallocated | 166 | £68.36m |
Limitations and further considerations
- The nature of the programmes means we receive only unique identifiers per underlying small and medium-sized business but these are specific to the delivery partner, as a result the number of small and medium-sized business is not a unique count as we are unable to identify whether a business has a loan with more than one of our delivery partners.
- Due to reporting limitations, the sum of the individual region and sector flow and small and medium-sized business values will not add up to the same value and will not match the total value of lending, as not all delivery partners provide SIC and region data for all their facilities. Additionally, some businesses can fall within multiple regions and sectors.
- Redacted: where we have less than 5 medium-sized businesses, the values have been redacted so that businesses cannot be identified.
Further Information
If you are a journalist and have a media enquiry, please contact [email protected].
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 sustainable growth and prosperity across the UK and to enable the transition to a net zero economy, by improving access to finance for smaller businesses. 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 over £17.4bn Read footnote text 1 of finance to almost 64,000 Read footnote text 2 smaller businesses.
As well as increasing the supply and diversity of finance for UK smaller businesses through its programmes, the Bank works to raise awareness of finance options available to smaller businesses. The British Business Bank Finance Hub provides independent and impartial information to businesses about finance options, featuring short films, expert guides, checklists and articles from finance providers to help make their application a success.
The British Business Bank is also responsible for administering the government’s three Coronavirus loan schemes and its Future Fund, together responsible for delivering £80.4bn in finance to 1.67m businesses. These schemes are now closed to new applications.
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.
-
Return to footnote location
1
Figures as at end March 2024
-
Return to footnote location
2
Figures as at end March 2024
Latest news
-
Read more about British Business Bank’s Small Business Equity Tracker finds AI deals 40% larger on average than deals across UK equity market Press release
24 June 2025 -
Read more about British Business Bank commits £6.6bn to back innovation as part the UK’s modern Industrial Strategy and to unlock potential for entrepreneurs across the UK Press release
23 June 2025 -
Read more about British Business Bank announces £10m Tier 2 investment in Shawbrook Bank as part of a £75m capital raise Press release
19 June 2025