We aim to lend over £200 million to small businesses before CBILS applications close in January

We’ve lent over £100 million through the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) so far to help small businesses weather the crisis. We aim to lend at least a further £100 million before the scheme closes on 31st January 2021, bringing our total lending to over £200 million.

What the data says

Since launching our CBILS offering in May, we’ve steadily increased our share of total approvals in the scheme, rising from 1.6% in August to 5.6% in October. Analysis of Treasury figures shows that last month, we approved one in every 18 of all loans via the scheme, helping hundreds of small businesses affected by the pandemic.

We’re focusing on helping new customers on to the scheme

With applications now closing in January, we’re redoubling our efforts on helping new customers to access finance in the time left. We opened up CBILS applications to new businesses in July, and over the past month 83% of our approvals through the scheme were given to new customers.

To further support small businesses, we’re also increasing our maximum loan value available to businesses through CBILS from £500,000 to £750,000. As the UK endures a second lockdown, we want to ensure that small businesses can access the finance they need in the face of growing economic pressures.

“Small business owners have had an incredibly tough year, “ says Michael Elalouf, iwoca’s CFO. “We’re grateful that we’ve been able to play our part in helping them to get through this crisis. With the recent CBILS extension, our focus is now on reaching as many business owners as possible who think they could benefit from Government backed finance. iwoca stands ready to help those customers who are struggling to get the support they need from the high street banks during this time.”

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Garry Barker is the Managing Director of a property development and construction company - Dream Developments – and took a CBILS loan with iwoca: “We develop commercial premises for local businesses,” said Gary. “Pre-pandemic we had big expansion plans but these were shelved due to the lack of mainstream funding. To survive, we’ve had to adapt – we’ve diversified into developing storage containers instead of buildings for our clients, to address a local shortfall in availability. We’d have never been able to pivot the business and go down this path if it were not for the government schemes and of course iwoca. Being able to invest this way helps our business, local businesses and the general public at a very difficult time.”

If you’re a small business owner and you’re looking for finance, you can apply for a loan with us through the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme, or our Flexi-Loan. We’ve also made our invoice payments product – iwocaPay – free until the end of the second national lockdown (2 December), to further help small businesses navigate the pandemic. iwocaPay allows sellers to get paid upfront while letting customers spread their costs over 90 days.

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Analysis we used in this story:

CBILS approvals share: HM Treasury data outlines the number of CBILs applications and approvals on a weekly basis since May 10. The Treasury’s data shows that between 20 September and 18 October 6,509 CBILs applications were approved across the UK, from this we can calculate that 1 in 18 of these were approved by iwoca.

Growth in CBILS approvals:To calculate the monthly breakdown of the number of CBILs approved across the UK the same HM Treasury data is used and shows that between 5 July and 16 August 6,873 CBILs were approved, between 16 August and 20 September 6,176 CBILs were approved, and 20 September and 18 October 6,509 CBILs applications were approved. Using these monthly figures and applying them to the CBILs approvals by iwoca during the periods of 5 July to 16 August, 17 August to 20 September, and 21 September to 18 October respectively, we can see the percentage of applications approved and the growth in approval by iwoca during each monthly period.