CBILS offers alternative lenders the chance to prove their value

Alternative lenders newly accredited for the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme (CBILS) have a chance to show how they can add value, ThinCats has claimed.

The alternative business finance lender, which exited the retail peer-to-peer lending market in favour of institutional funding last year, was accredited under CBILS on 27 April.

“The opportunity and challenge for these newly accredited lenders, including ThinCats, will be to show how they can add real value in an environment where loans are underwritten by an 80 per cent government guarantee, where there is a real need for speed for some businesses to access new finance, and where we may see businesses that typically avoid taking on debt, looking for funding solutions for the very first time,” said a ThinCats spokesperson.

This coincides with Peer2Peer Finance News’s ‘Back Our Industry’ campaign, which calls for the P2P industry to be utilised amid the Covid-19 pandemic, as platforms urge the government to recognise the role they can play in delivering funds to small and medium-sized enterprises.

ThinCats added that it will be interesting to see which part of the CBILS market alternative finance lenders engage with. The platform previously said it will be using its CBILS capability initially to support existing borrowers as it knows their businesses well and can therefore deliver finance for them quicker.

Now ThinCats has revealed that it will announce CBILS plans for new borrowers in due course, and they are likely to focus on lower volume, higher value loans to medium-sized businesses.

“This plays to our strengths in creating highly bespoke funding solutions built around a flexible credit policy and high levels of personal service,” said a ThinCats spokesperson.

“As the British Business Bank continues to widen the scheme, we look forward to seeing where future CBILS accredited non-bank lenders will choose to focus their resources.”