Gavin Opperman

This provides facilities of up to £5 million for smaller businesses across the UK who are experiencing lost or deferred revenues, leading to disruptions to their cashflow. 

These loans will be interest-free for the first 12 months and the bank has also taken the decision that no customer will need to make capital repayments during at least the first six months. 

The bank has said that it is committed to supporting customers in these unprecedented times and is working closely with customers on a package of measures to help and reassure them. 

These include:

• Relationship Managers can approve a three-month capital repayment holiday to business customers who have not previously been identified as being in or approaching financial difficulty, or other high-risk groups. This will help them to manage cashflows during the current emergency.
  
  
• As an expression of confidence and support for customers, Relationship Managers now have authority to extend overdraft and loan facilities by up to six months without charge - this is double the current three-month dispensation.

Gavin Opperman, group business director, said: “In these exceptional circumstances for businesses across the UK, it is really important to get financial support to them as quickly as possible and in the best ways to meet their needs.  We are pleased to support this new government sponsored scheme, as well as introduce additional measures that our relationship managers can tailor to suit our customers to help them navigate the current economic disruption. 

“We already have customers applying for Coronavirus Business Interruption Loans and we granted eligibility approval for the first one on Monday to three franchised fast food outlets. We remain on hand to discuss these initiatives and the variety of other options we have to support our customers’ contingency plans.”