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Treasury pushes to double bounce back loan repayment period to 10 years

Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
The Treasury is pushing for the bounce back loan repayment period to be doubled from five years to 10 years.
Both Government and banks that have jointly lent £33bn through the bounce back scheme are afraid of the looming wave of nonrepayment.
More than a million small companies have borrowed under the bounce back scheme, which offers loans of up to £50,000 and are covered by a 100-per-cent state guarantee.
The loans were launched in May after an outcry about the criteria attached to the coronavirus business interruption loans, which made it difficult for small businesses to qualify.
However, the Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that £53bn will eventually be handed to small firms in bounce back loans, with 40 per cent likely to default. This equates to costing the taxpayer £16bn in bad loans.
>See also: Half of small businesses will never repay Bounce Back Loans, warn banks
Bounce back loan repayment
Nearly half of small businesses that have taken out government emergency coronavirus loans do not intend to repay them. Forty-three per cent of businesses that have taken out either bounce back loans or coronavirus business interruption loans said they do not believe the Government will chase the

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Nearly a quarter of small businesses cut jobs despite furlough scheme

Originally written by Anna Jordan on Small Business
The latest research from the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) shows that 23 per cent of firms had already cut jobs in the last quarter, which is an all-time record for the survey.
This is predicted to become even more of an issue as the furlough scheme starts to taper off next month. The scheme has covered the wages of over 9m workers since it was introduced in April. But starting August 1st employers will need to start paying national insurance and pension contributions for furloughed staff, putting a further financial strain on bosses.
Begbies Traynor have carried out research of their own showing that an increasing number of small businesses are in distress. In fact, the number has risen by 16,000 since the end of March this year, now totalling 52,000 businesses. By ‘in distress’, Red Flag means that a businesses has had a minor County Court Judgement (of less than £5k) filed against them or that they’ve been identified in Red Flag’s credit scoring system as having a key or marked deterioration in key financial indicators.
The firm’s latest Red Flag report shows that this Q2 was the seventh consecutive quarter showing an increase

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