Chancellor Rishi Sunak has extended the recovery loan scheme by six months as part of his Autumn Budget 2021, meaning businesses can apply until June 2022.
Although the Chancellor didn't announce the extension in his speech he delivered in Parliament yesterday, the extension appeared in the Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021 document.
The recovery loan scheme currently offers businesses term loans and overdrafts of between £25,001 and £10 million for up to three years.
After 31 December 2021, the original date for the scheme to end, only small and medium sized businesses will be able to claim loans, this time to a maximum of £2m.
Launched in April 2021, the recovery loan scheme has given businesses £1 billion in loans, data from the administering British Business Bank reveals.
Catherine Lewis La Torre, chief executive of the British Business Bank, said:
"A six-month extension to the Recovery Loan Scheme will provide valuable support for smaller businesses as they look beyond the pandemic towards the opportunities available to them in the recovery."
But Ian Hepworth at Funding Solutions believes businesses aren't taking up the loans in "significant numbers" and it is rarely being delivered in a "meaningful way".
"Extending this scheme seems like an easy gesture that sounds great without having to do much", he added.
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