British Business Bank works on automation to quicken CBILS roll-out
The British Business Bank is working with lenders to further automate the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme (CBILS), to speed up the rate of loan approvals.
Banks have been criticised for their slow delivery of funds and the emergency government scheme has come under fire for its low rate of loan approvals.
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The latest figures from UK Finance figures showed that just 46.1 per cent of completed applications are getting approved.
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In an interview with business intelligence platform DueDil, the British Business Bank said it is fairly close to making its system able to talk to lenders’ systems automatically.
The government-backed bank said before this is in place, it has given the highest volume lenders a longer period before they need to register loan details into its system.
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“This means they can make loans, process the applications, and offer the money to businesses quickly so we do not expect this to be a constraint on their delivery of the scheme,” the bank told DueDil.
“They will then batch them up and will be able to upload them in bulk.”
The British Business Bank also defended itself from criticism that it has not approved many fintechs for accreditation for the scheme.
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It said it has been accelerating the onboarding of new lenders at pace to further extend the scheme’s reach.
The bank added that it has significantly increased the size of its accreditation team to more than 25 people to manage the volume of interest and continues to review applications from a wide range of lender types.