Barclays has today announced a £14bn lending fund as part of a series of initiatives intended to help SMEs “succeed and flourish” through Brexit.
The dedicated lending fund is for the businesses with turnover of up to £25m. Barclays said the fund would provide loans, commercial mortgages and cash flow funding for investments.
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In addition there will be more than 100 SME Brexit clinics and seminars being run in local communities across the country.
Group chief executive officer Jes Staley, said: “Barclays stands ready to help local businesses in towns, cities and rural communities, up and down the country, during this period of uncertainty. Today’s £14bn fund, along with our broader package of support, shows our commitment to the local businesses that are the backbone of the UK economy – we are here to help them plan for the future and invest for growth.
“It is the entrepreneurs, the farmers, the manufacturers, the house-builders, the new tech firms, and countless other businesses, that will help the country deal with and capitalise on this period of change. Barclays is here to help SMEs to do exactly that.”
Glynn Richards of AEG Teachwall, a Merseyside-based SME that imports aluminium and specialist engineering parts from China said: “Today’s commitment is reassuring for a business like ours. Despite some broader economic uncertainty, we’re keen to invest in new machinery in our main factory to keep on growing our business. With Barclays’ support on this front, I feel that we can invest with confidence, hire more people and hopefully expand across the North West and beyond.”
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By GlobalDataTSB has also launched an SME Lending Pledge, six commitments intended to help small business borrowers facing financial difficulty in the event of Britain departing the European Union. The commitments include not raising loan margins on existing facilities if a business enters into financial difficulty, and not defaulting a business if it is up-to-date on its loan payments, but a valuation change impacts a covenant.
