ThinCats accredited by British Business Bank to provide CBILS

We are delighted to announce that ThinCats has been approved by the British Business Bank as a new accredited lender to provide term loans through the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS).

The funding will come from ThinCats’ panel of institutional investors and will be used initially to support SMEs that have an existing ThinCats loan. Plans to make the scheme available to new ThinCats borrowers are being developed and will be announced at a later date.

The Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme, delivered through 50+ British Business Bank accredited lenders, 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 cashflow. It supports a wide range of business finance products, including term loans, overdrafts, invoice finance and asset finance facilities.

ThinCats uses capital from institutional investors to provide commercial loans to UK SMEs. Investors include Insight Investments, BAE Systems Pensions and British Business Investments, a commercial subsidiary of the British Business Bank. To date, ThinCats has lent more than £600m with loans ranging from £1m-£15m.

Ravi Anand, Managing Director, ThinCats: “We are delighted that the British Business Bank has approved ThinCats as an accredited lender for CBILS. Our initial focus will be on those businesses that we know the best and can therefore help most quickly, which are existing ThinCats borrowers.

Mid-sized SMEs account for more than 25% of UK GDP and are exactly the sort of businesses who can quickly contribute to the recovery of the UK economy. Our sole focus is on this part of the SME market, and we are keen to support them out of this crisis. The ability to offer additional funding through CBILS is a welcome addition to the toolkit of support we are already providing to our borrowers across the UK.

We will make further announcements about making CBILS available to new borrowers in due course.”