Credit, Collections & Insolvency News
The British Business Bank, the UK’s national economic development bank, has announced that it has supported lending to over 89,000 business with £6.6 billion of funding in its fifth year of operation.
The lending was an increase of 27% from £5.2 billion the previous year. Over 90% of the finance the Bank supported was delivered through smaller, newer or alternative finance providers. The Bank announced 13 new delivery partners across its programmes, bringing the total number of providers it works with to more than 130.
The Bank’s dedicated regional funds now support more than £240m of finance. To support its regional activities further, it introduced a new Regional Angels programme and a UK Network of Bank colleagues located across all regions of the UK. Awareness of the Bank amongst smaller businesses that might seek finance increased from 13% to 28% between Q4 2017 and Q4 2018. The Bank’s new online Finance Hub had over 200,000 visits since its June 2018 launch, and 77% of users would recommend the Finance Hub to others.
The Bank worked across Government to support priorities such as housing – with guarantees for up to £1bn to support lending to smaller housebuilders – and national security. It also published five major reports, including a ground breaking UK VC and Female Founders report in February 2019. The Bank returned a profit before tax of £81.3m. It produced a 3.6% adjusted return on capital employed, ahead of its 2.5% target. Since the Bank was created, it has generated excess returns ahead of its five-year target amounting to £195m.
Keith Morgan, CEO, said “In the past year, the Bank has delivered strongly against all six of its objectives and is supporting over 89,000 businesses with £6.6bn of finance, an increase of 27% over the year, following a period of rapid growth both in scope and delivery. The last five years have seen the British Business Bank build a strong track record of developing carefully targeted programmes to improve small business finance markets. We are well placed to support smaller businesses across the UK at every stage of development now and in the future.”
Lord Smith of Kelvin, Chair of the British Business Bank, said “Smaller businesses are of huge importance to the UK economy and this report shows the British Business Bank is playing a crucial part in their growth and success.”