Loan Top Up Scheme Created to Support SME’s
The Prime Minister David Cameron has announced that the government would make £95m from the £1.4bn Regional Growth Fund available, via high-street banks RBS, NatWest and HSBC, to help finance new investment.
As part of a package of initiatives designed to support SME growth, a grant scheme was unveiled. This scheme is intended to unlock £500m of capital expenditure and create 4k jobs.
£70m is being made available through RBS and NatWest and the balance through HSBC. The banks will not earn any fees for administering the scheme.
The scheme works like this…
Companies applying for loans through these lenders, that don’t have enough capital to access funding, will be directed to the pot, by their lender, for a top-up.
So, a box maker wanting to buy a £85k piece of kit is offered a loan of £50k but can only contribute £10k itself, could then potentially access the remaining £25k through the grant.
There is some small print, as you’d expect…
The funding is only available for new machinery that will create new jobs or safeguard existing ones and can only be awarded alongside acceptance of a bank loan, which should be two to five times the size of the grant. The grant isn’t available for re-financing
Posted Date: 23rd Nov 2011