The British Business Bank is a government-owned economic development bank. Set up in 2014 following the economic crisis, its core mission is to drive sustainable growth and prosperity across the UK, and to enable the transition to a net zero economy, by improving access to finance for smaller businesses.
The Bank enables businesses to prosper, grow and build economic activity by providing finance at every stage of their development:
- Start-ups, through the Start Up Loans Company
- Scale-ups, for businesses with ambitious growth plans, usually through using equity capital
- Staying ahead, for those with more modest expansion plans, usually through using debt finance
We do this not by lending or investing directly with smaller businesses, but by deploying our funding and support through a range of over 200 delivery partners on a wholesale basis. These partners range from the largest banks through to small venture capital providers and innovative new players in the market, such as peer-to-peer lenders. As the Government’s centre of expertise on SME finance, we design our programmes and allocate our resources based on those insights into SME finance markets.
