FSB welcome Chancellor intervention on emergency loans

Added by Love Business East Midlands | 2 April 2020

UPDATED: 3 April 2020

Business Secretary promised the Chancellor would come forward with additional measures to help small firms trying to access support.

Struggling small firms look forward to Chancellor intervention on emergency loans

Responding to this afternoon’s (April 1st) coronavirus update from Alok Sharma, where the Business Secretary promised the Chancellor would come forward with additional measures to help small firms trying to access support through the  Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS), Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) National Chairman Mike Cherry said:

“A lot of members approaching banks about emergency loans are met with one of two issues. Either lenders are trying to push them towards standard, expensive products – demanding personal guarantees – or the banks are simply not responsive: they say they’ll call back and the call back never comes.

“Many small employers had to pay staff last week. The job retention scheme is a great one, and one we fought hard to secure, but firms can’t claim through it until later this month. If the advice for those with no revenue coming in is speak to your bank about cashflow, then we need to see the Treasury working with lenders to ensure they’re pulling out all the stops to make emergency loans available. The initial feedback we’ve had from the frontline about the interruption loan scheme has not been positive.  

“We can’t have a situation where banks are approached by successful small firms and lenders offer up business as usual products. This is not business as usual. Millions of fantastic small firms are facing collapse. They were promised interest free, fee free, government-backed support from banks. Many of them are in urgent need of it today, and it’s not being made available.
“We look forward to the Chancellor’s intervention.” 
 

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