The British Business Bank has announced that it has approved the accreditation of four new lenders under the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS), which provides financial support to small businesses.

The new lenders of CBILS are Allied Irish Bank, ThinCats, Paragon Bank and IGF (Independent Growth Finance).

Each lender will now put in place the necessary operations to start lending under the mechanism and will soon confirm the dates from which he will be ready to start receiving requests.

Over 80 percent of UK small businesses have a financial relationship with over 50 CBILS accredited lenders. The British Business Bank says it is accelerating at a sustained pace the onboarding of new lenders to further extend the reach of the program.

It was initially announced in the budget that a first £ 1bn in government-backed loans would be available through CBILS. The government subsequently announced that it would be a demand-driven program, providing everything the market needs.

British Business Bank CEO Keith Morgan said: “Accredited lenders have continued to see incredible demand for CBILS, so the Bank is helping meet this demand and providing even more choices for small businesses by approving additional lenders for program accreditation.

“The announcement means that these newly accredited lenders will be able to deploy critical finance and secure additional finance for small businesses across the UK as quickly as possible.”

Business Secretary Alok Sharma said: “These loans are an essential part of the broad support program the government has put in place to help UK businesses. I’m excited to see more lenders offering loans which in turn will help even more businesses access the funds they need. “

The Bank says it continues to review applications from a wide range of types of lenders – from PRA-regulated banks to platform lenders, debt funds, bill finance lenders, debt finance lenders. ‘assets and responsible financial lenders.