British Business Bank helps companies access ВЈ1.14 billion worth of COVID-19 loans with Salesforce
Predicting demand for a new service or product can be difficult – especially during a pandemic. When the British Business Bank started taking applications for the government’s Future Fund, it was in for a shock. Within 24 hours, it had received 500 applications for loans that would help innovative UK companies weather the COVID-19 storm.
“Access to working capital is critical when a business is starting up and scaling up. Without the Future Fund, some companies would have not survived the pandemic,” said Keira Shepperson, Director of the Future Fund. “By digitalising and automating the lending process, we were able to respond quickly to help companies not only survive but thrive in uncertain times.”
The Future Fund, which was announced by the UK Chancellor in , is just one of four COVID-19 loan schemes being managed by the British Business Bank. Since , the bank has delivered more than ВЈ79 billion of essential financial support to more than 1.6 million businesses.
“ Access to working capital is critical when a business is starting up and scaling up. Without the Future Fund, some companies would have not survived the pandemic. By digitalising and automating the lending process, we were able to respond quickly to help companies not only survive but thrive in uncertain times.”
“ Access to working capital is critical when a business is starting up and scaling up. Without the Future Fund, some companies would have not survived the pandemic. By digitalising and automating the lending process, we were able to respond quickly to help companies not only survive but thrive in uncertain times.”
Portal cuts funding process from months to days
Managing a sudden influx of applications to the Future Fund was just the start of the challenge for the British Business Bank; it also needed to approve requests in record time. To accelerate the loan process, the bank deployed a dedicated online portal with support from PwC. “Our goal was to make a loan offer to companies within 21 days of their application,” said Shepperson. “It normally takes several months to secure additional funding but companies needed a much faster injection of cash; jobs and research projects were on the line.”
Built on Experience Cloud, the Future Fund portal enabled companies like Momentum Bioscience to access capital when they needed it most. “Our business was at a sensitive stage having just completed a financing round and invested heavily in setting up the pilot study. Had our application to the Future Fund not been successful, it’s highly likely that we’d have had to embark on deeper cost cuts, including making a significant number of redundancies,” commented Sumi Thaker, CEO of the Cardiff-based bioscience diagnostics company. “We submitted our application on the day the Future Fund opened, with the process towards completing the convertible loan agreement taking just a few installment loans West Virginia weeks. We received the money a few weeks after that.”
Bank scales up to provide additional support during pandemic
Momentum Bioscience is just one of 1,190В companies that have been approved by the Future Fund to receive loans worth a total of ВЈ1.14В billion. The cash injection from the government, which ranges between ВЈ125,000 to ВЈ5 million per company, is matched by third-party investors and eventually converts to an equity stake.В
The portal was critical to the success of the Future Fund enabling the British Business Bank to fast-track the introduction of new processes and simplify access to real-time performance metrics. “We wanted to automate as many workflows as possible,” said Martin Jones, the bank’s Technology Delivery Director. “We had used Salesforce to support another loan programme and knew it could be deployed with minimal customisation.”