News

Funding Circle accredited under the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (“CBILS”)

  • Funding Circle becomes the first newly accredited marketplace lending platform under CBILS

Funding Circle, the small business loans platform, has today been approved for accreditation by the British Business Bank under the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS), term loan variant.

Funding Circle expects to open CBILS applications within the next week once it has completed the required legal and operational approvals with the Bank.

Keith Morgan, CEO, British Business Bank, said: “Our accredited lenders have seen an incredible demand for CBILS since the scheme became available. As the first newly accredited marketplace lending platform to be accredited under CBILS, Funding Circle will be able to provide more capacity, more choice and most importantly, vital funding for smaller businesses across the UK. This accreditation continues the British Business Bank’s long-term support for the growth of marketplace lending since its earliest stages.”

More than 80% of the UK’s smaller businesses have a finance relationship with CBILS accredited lenders. The British Business Bank is accelerating the onboarding of new lenders to further extend the scheme’s reach. The Bank continues to review applications from a wide range of lender types – from PRA-regulated banks, to platform lenders, debt funds, invoice finance lenders, asset finance lenders and responsible finance lenders.

Funding Circle is the largest online small business loan provider in the U.K. and has originated over £6.2 billion of loans to 57,000+ businesses.

ENDS

Further information

British Business Bank

Suzanna Jebbitt

Communications Manager

0207 898 5829 / 07827 552 301

Suzanna.Jebbitt@british-business-bank.co.uk

British Business Bank

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 make finance markets for smaller businesses work more effectively, enabling those businesses to prosper, grow and build UK economic activity. 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 programmes are supporting more than £7.2bn of finance to over 93,000 smaller businesses (as at end of September 2019).

As well as increasing both supply and diversity of finance for UK smaller businesses through its programmes, the Bank works to raise awareness of the finance options available to smaller businesses:

  • The Business Finance Guide (published in partnership with the ICAEW and a further 21 business and finance organisations) impartially sets out the range of finance options available to businesses at all stages – from start-ups to SMEs and growing mid-sized companies. Businesses can take the interactive journey at thebusinessfinanceguide.co.uk.
  • The British Business Bank Finance Hub provides independent and impartial information to high-growth businesses about their finance options, featuring short films, expert guides, checklists and articles from finance providers to help make their application a success. The new site also features case studies and learnings from real businesses to guide businesses through the process of applying for growth finance.

As the holding company of the group operating under the trading name of British Business Bank, British Business Bank plc is wholly owned by HM Government and is not authorised or regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) or the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The British Business Bank operates under its own brand name through a number of subsidiaries, none of which are authorised and regulated by the FCA.

British Business Bank plc and its principal operating subsidiaries are not banking institutions and do not operate as such. A complete legal structure chart for British Business Bank plc and its subsidiaries can be found on the British Business Bank plc website.