Covid-19: British Business Bank Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Lord Holmes of Richmond
Main Page: Lord Holmes of Richmond (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Holmes of Richmond's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
(4 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Callanan
The noble Baroness makes a good point, but we have provided a generous guarantee scheme and we fully expect that all businesses will benefit from such schemes and that banks pass on the savings to borrowers. We have removed the forward-looking viability test, as I said earlier, but we constantly monitor all these schemes and seek to improve them where possible.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, to what extent have the Government involved our fantastic fintech sector and would they consider setting aside a certain percentage of funds for fintechs to distribute, bringing much-needed pace and efficiency to the process?
Lord Callanan
My noble friend makes a very good point—fintech has a significant role to play. Funding Circle, as he will be aware, was recently added as a CBILS accredited lender. Along with other alternative finance providers, it will help even more businesses to access the finance they need at this difficult time.