CBILS loans hit £5.5bn of lending to SMEs

More than a quarter of the total £5.5bn, a cool £1.4bn, worth of loans were provided in the week from 29 April to 6 May as lending under the scheme continues to grow.

The amount of lending provided by the banking and finance sector has increased to £5.5bn to SMEs so far through the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS), according to data provided by UK Finance.

A slight uptick of £1.4bn worth of loans was provided in the week from 29 April to 6 May, higher slightly than the previous seven day period of £1.33bn in loans approved between 21 April 2020 and 28 April.

The British Business Bank also approved ten more lenders for accreditation under the CBIL scheme this week, bringing the total number of accredited lenders to 63.

The number of approved loans grew by a third over the same period, increasing by 8,550 to 33,812. Lenders have received 62,674 completed applications under the CBIL scheme so far. Just over half (33,812) of these applications have been approved to date.

These latest figures come in the same week as the launch of the Bounce Bank Loans (BBL) scheme. HM Treasury yesterday revealed that 69,000 Bounce Back Loans worth over £2bn were approved during the first 24 hours of the scheme.

Not all are happy with the new BBL scheme, however. Simon Cureton, CEO of Funding Options says the scheme will provide the type of support small and micro businesses need but by offering an interest rate "that only the banks can afford" the scheme is in essence anti-competitive.

"Furthermore, given that all but one of the providers are restricting BBLs to existing customers, the market is effectively closed for small businesses that have chosen to bank with any of the Challenger or Neo banks, for example," he said. 

"This puts a worrying question mark over the entire ecosystem underpinning the business lending sector in the longer term and it contradicts the ethos behind the distribution of the Banking Competition Remedies (BCR) grant funding," he added.