As part of the Group’s commitment to lend £18bn this year, a £2bn fund was allocated for businesses impacted by COVID-19 to provide fee-free financing to help them with their working capital
Since the beginning of March relationship managers have been working tirelessly, talking to tens of thousands of business customers to understand how COVID-19 is impacting them and to provide support where it is needed. As part of the Group’s commitment to lend £18bn this year, a £2bn fund was allocated for businesses impacted by COVID-19 to provide fee-free financing to help them with their working capital.
In addition to the £3bn in existing undrawn overdraft facilities that was already available to businesses, we have approved a further 10,000 overdraft extensions worth £100m
We have approved 20,000 capital repayment holidays to help businesses with their working capital challenges and reduce their outgoings
We are approving the vast majority of eligible CBILS applications that we assess and so far out of 2,876 completed applications we have approved 2,382 CBILS loans to a value of £335m.
Our capacity to process applications continues to increase and we are doing all we can to ensure that customers get the financing they need. As well as prioritising urgent cases we are working to urgently process the backlog of CBILS applications that have built up while we have been establishing our operation and processes to offer these loans.
For our larger customers, we are one of seven providers of CLBILS and we are also registered as a dealer and arranger for commercial paper to facilitate the needs of investment grade corporations through the CCFF scheme.
David Oldfield, Group Director & CEO, Commercial said: “During uncertain times our business customers need reassurance and support, we understand this and are here to support. We have supported 30,000 businesses, allocated considerable, additional resource to meet the demand, but also provide the right solution to suit their needs. This can range from an overdraft extension, repayment holidays through to term lending and CBILS. Our processing of CIBLS applications for those that need them is accelerating quickly and we would expect that to continue over coming days. We will continue to work alongside our customers to meet their needs.”