OakNorth Bank dishes out over £1bn in new loans as it’s awarded additional CBILS allocation by the British Business Bank

The SME challenger has loaned over £1.1bn since March, including £400m through government lending schemes.

OakNorth Bank has approved over £1.1bn in new loans since March, including £400m through the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) and the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CLBILS). 

Following the success of its lending, the British Business Bank has also extended its allocation for government-backed lending by an undisclosed amount. 

Between June and August, the lender saw its lending volume double compared to the same period last year, with that number increasing four-fold in the last month alone. 

Ben Barbanel, head of debt finance at OakNorth Bank, said: “At the start of the pandemic, we made a commitment to continue supporting experienced management teams and viable British businesses.” 

“As part of that commitment, we’ve approved over £1bn in new loans, held more than 325 credit committees and are currently seeing four times the lending volume going to credit committee vs the same period last year." 

At the end of August, OakNorth also loaned fellow fintech Ultimate Finance £20m to help the lender bolster its SME lending. 

As well as being a prolific lender, OakNorth teamed up with regtech ComplyAdvantage last week to help fight financial crime.  

With ComplyAdvantage’s help, OakNorth Bank will be fully compliant with anti-money laundering (AML) regulations and will ensure that no suspicious behaviour goes unnoticed.  

The SME challenger bank also recently appointed a new CFO after long-serving CFO Christina Alba Ochoa announced she was stepping down from the top job in June.  

Rajesh Gupta joins OakNorth Bank from Kensington Mortgages, a leading specialist lender, where he spent the last five and a half years as its CFO.