OakNorth originates £36m of CBILS loans

The SME focused fintech lender was one of the first fintech firms to be approved during the COVID-19 pandemic to help deliver loans partly backed by the UK government.

OakNorth Bank has approved over £36m of loans through the government’s Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) since being onboarded to it two weeks ago.

The fintech lender, which has also approved £50m of other loans also since the COVID-19 lockdown began in March, says it is still seeing a strong pipeline of opportunities. 

Ben Barbanel (pictured), Head of Debt Finance at OakNorth Bank, says the crisis looks like it’s going to be even worse than the financial crisis of 2008.

"There will be many businesses that were strong, profitable, healthy businesses before the pandemic which will now be struggling to survive," he said.

"We are trying to find ways to support these businesses and help them through this extremely difficult time, as well as those who have been positively impacted by the lockdown and are looking for debt finance to grow. We are therefore hosting Credit Committees morning, noon and night, as well as on weekends, to try and get capital to the businesses that need it as quickly as possible,” he added.