Iwoca accredited under the Recovery Loan Scheme

With original loan schemes (CBILS, CLIBLS and BBLS) long gone, the government is still accrediting lenders to its newest support package for SMEs, the Recovery Loan Scheme.

Today, after months of waiting, alternative business lender Iwoca has joined the 70 other lenders accredited to the scheme.

Other fintech lenders accredited to the government scheme include Starling Bank,OakNorth Bank, Atom Bank and Funding Circle.

The Recovery Loan Scheme offers SMEs 80 per cent government-backed loans of between £25,000 and £10m, with interest rates capped at 15 per cent.

“We’re proud that we could support small businesses through the toughest of times. With CBILS alone, we lent nearly £400 million to 1,500 business owners across the country representing 10 per cent of the market share of approvals,” Christoph Rieche, CEO and co-founder of Iwoca, said.

“As the recovery starts to get into full swing, businesses will now need more funding to take full advantage of the opportunities ahead.”

Under the scheme, Iwoca will offer SMEs loans from between £25,001 and £750,000 repayable over five years, with no personal guarantee on loans under £250,000.

Just over a month ago, Iwoca also teamed up with SME lending marketplace Funding Xchange have to launch the UK’s first fully automated cash advance product for online SMEs, powered by open banking.

The partnership means that SMEs trading via platforms like eBay or Shopify can now access Iwoca’s flexible loans of between £1,000-£50,000 through Funding Xchange’s marketplace, with repayments automated based on their monthly revenues.

Research from Iwoca found that small businesses applying for credit from Iwoca through its embedded finance partner network are more likely to be approved than those applying directly to the lender.

In fact, approvals were 58 per cent higher when coming through an embedded finance partner—a trend the lender puts down to users applying for finance through its partners having more data on hand to complete their applications to a higher standard.