Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
Chancellor Rishi Sunak is preparing to offer 100% guaranteed loans of up to £25,000 to Britain’s microbusinesses.
Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey, three ex-Conservative chancellors and Tory MPs have put the chancellor under sustained pressure to amend the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme (CBILS) for a third time.
On Monday, the chancellor said he was “not persuaded” to increase guarantees for small businesses borrowing up to £5m through the scheme.
This is despite just 16,600 loans being approved so far out of 36,000 applications. This out of a potential market of 5.9m small businesses.
>See also: Coronavirus emergency business loans may be changed yet again
Would-be borrowers say they can either never get through to their bank or the bank rejects them as being too risky. The Catch-22 here is that banks are only lending to businesses it deems would have been viable before the coronavirus pandemic.
A recent survey by payment processor Tide showed small businesses expect revenue is set to decline by 57 per cent by the end of April. Over one in three small businesses (36 per cent) expect their year-on-year income to plummet by more than 90 per cent this month.
According to the Financial