Fiduciam receives £430 million of loan requests since CBILS accreditation

By Megha Bhattacharya

UK-based short term lender Fiduciam has already received £430 million of loan requests since it became an accredited CBILS lender two and a half months ago on the 22nd of July. The FinTech expects to receive at least another £200 million of requests for Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) loans between now and the new scheme closure date of the 30th November. Chancellor Rishi Sunak, on 24th of September, extended the CBILS scheme by a further two months, until 30th November.

Johan Groothaert, CEO of Fiduciam commented, “We have already seen more than £430m in loan requests since we became an accredited CBILS lender in early July. As a result, we have reallocated a substantial amount of our resources to handle the CBILS application volumes. There has been an increase in applications the closer we got to the 30th September deadline, so the extension of CBILS to 30 November was both welcome and necessary with many businesses still facing financial difficulties.”

Fiduciam stated that the types of borrowers and businesses applying for CBILS loans have ranged from automotive firms to children’s nurseries and from hotels to housebuilders.

CBILS, delivered through the British Business Bank, is designed to support the continued provision of finance to UK smaller businesses (SMEs) during the Covid-19 outbreak. The scheme enables lenders to provide facilities of up to £5m to smaller businesses across the UK who are experiencing lost or deferred revenues, leading to disruptions to their cash flow.

“It is encouraging to see that most of the loan requests are of good quality. Many SMEs remain cash strapped whilst their business fundamentals are very strong. Whilst central bank initiatives typically do not reach the SME segment, CBILS does, providing these businesses with an opportunity to weather the crisis.

“With the Chancellor having extended the deadline for new CBILS applications by two months, we expect to receive a further £200 million in requests,” Groothaert concluded.