The British Business Bank brings expertise and Government money to the smaller business finance markets. Understanding markets and smaller businesses’ finance needs allows it to design programmes to make finance markets work better, and investing alongside private sector investors maximises its impact and allows it to reach the full range of finance providers such as banks, leasing companies, venture capital funds and web-based platforms.
In addition to finance, it also uses guarantees to share risk with the private sector and so create stronger incentives for lenders to extend credit to smaller or growing companies.
Its route to market is through established or newly emerging finance market providers. In total it works through more than 80 finance partners in the market, and will unlock up to £10 billion of new finance and bring greater choice and information on finance options to smaller businesses. Its programmes are designed to bring benefits to smaller businesses that are start-ups, high growth, or simply viable but underfunded.
At the end of the last financial year, over 35,000 businesses were benefiting from its solutions.
