British Business Bank extends CBILS deadline

Written by Sharon Kimathi
20th August 2020

The UK state-backed British Business Bank (BBB) has given banks extra time to grant state-backed loans to medium-sized and larger businesses affected by the COVID-19 crisis.

Firms have two more months to consider the cases. The date of the final approval is 30 November.

Applications for the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme (CBILS) aimed at medium-sized businesses with turnover of up to £45 million had to be in by midnight on 30 September.

The change means firms have two more months to consider the cases. The date of the final approval is 30 November.

The deadline for approving large CBILS (CLBILS) is set for 31 December. The business bank said that it had provided “an update clarifying the closing of applications”.

According to the National Association of Commercial Finance Brokers (NACFB), some lenders interpreted this as an extension of the loans.

This could be the first step in a move to keep the schemes open into next year.

See also: OakNorth’s UK bank has approved £600m in loans since March

The government’s initial intention was to have a temporary scheme which would last six months.

The deadline for CBILS was set for 30 September, while the cut-off for the CLBILS scheme was 20 October.

The government published statistics showing that over 1.2 million businesses have to date benefitted from loans and guarantees worth £52.65 billion through schemes delivered by the BBB.

This includes 1,174,854 Bounce Back Loans worth over £35 billion. Also 60,409 facilities worth almost £13.7 billion have gone through CBILS. While 516 facilities worth £3.5 billion have gone through the CLBILS.

The BBB says it continues to review applications from a wide range of lender types. These range from Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) regulated banks, to platform lenders, debt funds, invoice finance lenders, asset finance lenders and responsible finance lenders.

On 19 August, the BBB announced that it had approved BLG Development Finance, Conister, RM Funds and Western Union Business Solutions for accreditation for CBILS.

Under the scheme, CBILS lenders are able to provide finance to smaller businesses with turnover of up to £45 million that are suffering disruption to their cashflow due to lost or deferred revenues during the COVID-19 outbreak.