SMEs in Wales were offered £135 million in recovery loans

With businesses still reeling from the difficult trading conditions during the past two years, the British Business Bank has revealed details of the scale of funding that’s been provided to SMEs in Wales in the form of recovery loans.

Post-pandemic recovery

Just over £135m has been offered to SMEs based in Wales under the Recovery Loan Scheme, which was launched in April of 2021. The scheme was devised to give a helping hand to businesses to aid recovery from the loss of trading caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The scheme was set up by the UK Government’s economic development bank, which has a UK-wide remit to help provide equity firms and loans to UK businesses to grow and recover after the global pandemic hit.

Figures for Wales

£135.4m was the total amount of funding that was offered by accredited lenders and somewhere around £117.7m had been funnelled through 639 facilities to 580 businesses in Wales. The scheme has ended up providing £4.52bn of lending through 20,643 facilities across the UK which is astounding. £3.83bn of that sum has been drawn down through to 18,338 facilities.

The rest of the UK

Elsewhere in the UK there was £250 million paid out in loans to 1436 businesses in the south west of England. More than 1500 businesses in the West Midlands shared in excess of £307 million in recovery loans. While in Scotland 962 businesses benefited from £205 million from the British Business Bank. The largest amount of loans paid out was unsurprisingly in London, with just over 3,000 small businesses in the capital sharing £905 million in funding.

Susan Nightingale who is the UK network director for the devolved nations was quoted saying: “The British Business Bank is committed to supporting smaller businesses in accessing the finance they need to grow sustainably.” “Hundreds of businesses across Wales have taken out loans under the Recovery loan Scheme. This will better position them to confront both the challenges and opportunities that are ahead.” 

Scheme was extended to meet demand

The total amount of the funding offered from the recovery scheme represents 3% of all the national total which is in line with the relative size of the UK nation’s business population which is 4%. The scheme which was launched in April 2021 was originally meant to only run until the 31st of December 2021. The scheme ended up being extended by six months to the 30th of June 2022 to help businesses more and also made some adjustments to the terms of the scheme.

The government is providing a guarantee of 80% for loans made before the 1st of January 2022 and a 70% chance for loans made after that date. In terms of the scheme then the borrower would remain 100% liable for the debt. What are your thoughts on this? Are you a business owner who needed a recovery loan from this scheme?

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