CLBILS Scheme goes live and new Future Fund announced

BBB update on the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Schemes and Fund, designed to support UK businesses that are losing revenue and seeing their cashflow disrupted as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Docs outlining the updates:

CLBILS Factsheet

CLBILS email UKN Final 20th April 2020

1. The Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CLBILS) was announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on Thursday, 16^th April 2020. The new scheme provides finance to mid-sized and larger UK businesses with turnover above £45m (which is the upper limit for the existing smaller-business focused CBILS). CLBILS can help provide facilities of up to £25m for businesses with turnover from £45m up to £250m, and facilities of up to £50m for those businesses with a turnover of more than £250m who are suffering disruption to their cashflow due to lost or deferred revenues during the Covid-19 outbreak. The scheme will be operational with lenders from Monday 20 April 2020. The CLBILS website is the best source of up to date information but for your ease of reference please see attached the following documents which contain all the key details, including some social media assets (suggested posts also noted below) you may wish to share to support awareness:
   1. A CLBILS Factsheet is attached for you to share with businesses.
   2. Social media assets are attached to help you share the message.

1. New Future Fund to support innovative UK businesses. On 20^th April 2020 the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced he is to establish a new Future Fund to support the UK’s innovative businesses currently affected by Covid-19. These businesses have been unable to access other government business support programmes, because they are either pre-revenue or pre-profit and typically rely on equity investment. The scheme will deliver an initial commitment of £250m of new government funding which will be unlocked by private investment on a match funded basis. The government scheme, which will be developed in partnership with the British Business Bank with the intention of launching for applications in May, will initially be open until the end of September. Over the coming weeks the Bank will work with government on the details on how the Future Fund will operate and how to apply for the scheme.

1. More delivery partners announced for CBILS, and updated FAQs. The British Business Bank has recently announced that it has approved five new lenders for accreditation under the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS):  The Co-operative Bank, Cynergy Bank, OakNorth Bank, Starling Bank and Funding Circle. In addition, Arkle Finance, Close Brothers and Secure Trust Bank, recently accredited under the Enterprise Finance Guarantee, are now accredited under CBILS.  Coutts has been accredited for CBILS as part of RBS Group’s existing accreditation. You can view and select a CBILS accredited lender here.

We have recently revised and updated our CBILS FAQs for SMEs with a number of the more complex questions that SMEs have been asking Lenders. The new questions we have added to the FAQs page on our BBB website are listed in the attached document.