High demand for loans

High demand for small emergency loans from businesses Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has approved 70% of the loans handed out to businesses under the government-backed Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS). New figures show RBS approved 2,500 loans and the lender is the only major bank offering CBILS loans worth below £25,000. Small businesses are reporting that banks require them to borrow a minimum of £25k. HSBC told the Telegraph it is working on reducing the size of loans available to sole traders to below this amount. Elsewhere, fintech firms insist they could get loans out to small businesses faster than high street banks, which they say use crumbling legacy systems while fintechs can utilise machine learning for rapid assessment of claims. Charlotte Crosswell, of Innovate Finance, says: "There's a lot of back and forth with us and the government and regulators on how we can really leverage the fintech sector now.”