The British Business Bank has reached the landmark milestone of £5bn of lending across its structured guarantee programmes, ENABLE Guarantees and ENABLE Build, with more than £3bn delivered to businesses outside London and the South East. A total of £500m of funding has been provided in each of the North West, East Midlands and East of England regions.

The ENABLE Guarantees programme is designed to encourage additional lending to smaller and medium-sized businesses. Participating institutions are incentivised by a government-backed guarantee to support defined portfolios of debt finance in return for a fee.

Smaller and medium-sized businesses across the UK have benefited significantly from the programme. The structured guarantee programmes have provided over £2.3bn of support to the construction and housing sectors, including c. £1.2bn under ENABLE Build. Other notable sectors benefiting include hospitality, with over £270m, and agriculture, with over £260m.

Since the first transaction in 2017, these structured guarantee programmes have supported both bank and non-bank financial institutions to unlock more lending to smaller and medium-sized businesses.

The ENABLE Guarantees programme is open to all UK banks, UK branches of foreign banks, asset and asset-based finance providers as well as certain other categories of lenders which lend, or intend to lend, to viable small and medium-sized enterprises operating in the UK.

The ENABLE Build programme operates in a similar manner to the ENABLE Guarantees programme, but is focused on encouraging additional lending to smaller and medium-sized housebuilders in the UK.

Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, said: “Our work with the British Business Bank is one of many levers we are pulling to go further and faster in our mission to deliver economic growth for the entire country and put more money in people’s pockets.

This £5bn lending milestone is our Plan for Change in action. Not only has this programme delivered much-needed investment to areas outside London and the South East, it has supported the construction and housing sectors to get Britain building again.”

Michael Strevens (pictured above), Managing Director, Structured Financial Institutions, British Business Bank said: “It’s incredibly rewarding to reflect on the volume of lending to smaller and medium-sized businesses and the number of homes built that we’ve helped enable over the years.

Our focus has always been on evolving our support to strengthen UK businesses, and it’s encouraging to see those efforts bearing fruit. Looking ahead, we’re focused on being more proactive, working closely with lenders to understand their challenges and tailor solutions that fit. That’s how we’ll unlock the next £5bn, and do so with greater pace and purpose.”

Adam Bovingdon, Head of Property Development, United Trust Bank (UTB) said: “UTB helped the British Business Bank develop its ENABLE Guarantees programme to be suitable for supporting housebuilding and was the first lender to take advantage of it when it was made available to the sector in 2017.

We subsequently signed up to ENABLE Build and I am delighted to say that earlier this year UTB surpassed £1bn of ENABLE guaranteed lending across both schemes, delivering nearly 450 loan facilities to SME housebuilders and supporting the creation of around 4,700 new homes.”

He added: “Bearing in mind that during this period lenders and housebuilders have also had to contend with the Covid-19 pandemic and considerable economic and political volatility, it’s clear just how important this support has been. ENABLE is an excellent example of successful state and private sector cooperation.”

Ravi Anand, Managing Director of ThinCats said: “The British Business Bank’s ENABLE Guarantees programme has been huge contributions to the £1bn of funding we have undertaken post COVID. The scheme ‘does what it says on the tin’ enabling senior bank appetite to allow ThinCats to fund growth initiatives of UK mid-sized SMEs and in turn enabling a positive contribution to UK GDP.”

Brian Berry, Chief Executive of the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) said: “It’s positive to see that small housebuilders have taken advantage of ENABLE schemes. Financing is one of the top issues holding back small developers from building new homes and the more finance options there are the better.

The ENABLE Build scheme helps aid diversification of the UK’s housing market, which is essential to deliver the Government’s ambition of 1.5m new homes.”