
British Business Bank
Steel City House
West Street
Sheffield
S1 2GQ
United Kingdom
+44 114 206 2131
http://british-business-bank.co.uk/
Year of creation individual entities or association | Current institution has existed since 2012. SME loan guarantee scheme since 1981 (with various name and eligibility criteria changes over the intervening years). |
Type of organization National Promotional Bank (NPB), National Promotional Institution (NPI), Private, Mutual, Mixed | NPB |
Type of scheme guarantee or counter-guarantee | Guarantee |
Product typology guarantee or counter-guarantee or co-guarantee | The British Business Bank plc (BBB) is the UK Government’s development bank. It aims to make finance markets work better for small businesses in the UK at all stages of their development; starting up, scaling up and staying strong. It provides a guarantee scheme, the Enterprise Finance Guarantee (EFG), to facilitate lending by banks and other financial institutions to SMEs with viable business propositions but which would otherwise be declined due to the inadequacy of their security. |
Ownership i.e. fully mutual, funded by SMEs, banking associations, fully public, fully private, private-public, mixed models | Fully Public - wholly owned by UK Government |
Shareholder structure Private / Public (in %) | 0/100 |
Legal form of single guarantee entity or association: i.e. fund, development bank, development agency, cooperative or mutual societies, bank, foundation, association, limited company, etc. | BBB plc is a Public Limited Company. EFG is operated within a subsidiary, British Business Financial Services Ltd, which delivers programmes underwritten by and on behalf of the UK Government’s Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS). In terms of the formal legal arrangements, the EFG guarantee is provided to the banks and other participating financial institutions as a sovereign guarantee from the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation & Skills. |
Structure / Network i.e. central scheme with regional offices, central scheme only, association network | BBB operates from offices in Sheffield (head office) and London. EFG is operated by the Lending Solutions (LS) team based in Sheffield. |
Geographic coverage i.e. local, regional, national | BBB has a UK-wide remit. EFG operates UK wide. Some participating lending institutions operate UK-wide while others have more localised coverage. |
Sectorial focus i.e. agriculture, industry, crafts, retail, liberal professions, cooperatives, etc. | No specific sectoral focus for BBB. EFG is only available in de minimis sectors. |
Supervision statute i.e. mono-product banking licenses, financial intermediary statute, non-supervised. For associations, please state statute of members | BBB is accountable to a Board of Directors and, as it is Government-owned, ultimately to Ministers and Parliament. BBB’s management of EFG is supervised by BBB’s own risk management and internal and external audit arrangements. Lending institutions’ use of EFG is subject to an audit process performed by independent auditors appointed and paid for by BBB. |
Profit / Non-profit oriented dividends to public shareholders are not considered as profit orientation | Non-profit |
Do you benefit from a counter-guarantee at local, regional or national level? Local level or Regional level or National level | No |
Are you/your members financial intermediary for EU-programmes? CIP/COSME or Structural funds or Progress or RSI/RSFF Horizon 2020 | No |
Types of guarantee products provided by your organisation/your members | Loan default guarantees, Working capital loan guarantees |
Other SME support instruments offered by your organisation/your members Subsidized loans or Mezzanine financing or Venture capital or Coaching or Mediation services | Subsidised loans, Mezzanine financing, Venture capital |
Is the activity subject to state aid regulation? | Yes |
Do you (your members) use..? De minimis or GBER or Regional guidelines or Notification | de minimis |
Do you (your members) dispose of an internal rating/scoring system? | Lenders apply their normal commercial processes and criteria |
Do your guarantees provide deponderation (capital relief) for member banks subject to capital requirements (Basel agreement)? | Yes, although that relief is not necessarily needed or used by all the Lenders benefitting from the EFG guarantee. |
Do you (your members) benefit of a public counter-guarantee that allows deponderation (capital relief)? | No |