The Growth Guarantee Scheme is a UK government-backed lending scheme, administered by the British Business Bank, under which the government gives an accredited lender a 70% guarantee on qualifying facilities to smaller businesses. The guarantee protects the lender, not you. As the borrower you remain 100% liable for the full debt.
That is the point most often misunderstood, so it is worth stating twice: the guarantee is not insurance for the borrower and it does not write off any part of what you owe. If you fall behind, the lender pursues you in the normal way, and any security or personal guarantee given can be enforced. The second misunderstanding is that a scheme-backed facility is somehow automatic — it is not. The lender still lends its own money and still applies its own credit criteria.
The scheme supports term loans, asset finance, invoice finance and overdrafts through a large panel of accredited lenders across the UK — currently more than 70 of them. Facilities are generally supported up to £2m, or up to £1m for borrowers in scope of the Northern Ireland Protocol, with terms of up to ten years available for term loans and asset finance, and turnover-based eligibility limits apply. Accredited lenders are expected to use the guarantee only where they could not have offered a facility on equivalent terms without it.
Scheme rules, eligibility criteria, limits and the list of accredited lenders can and do change. The British Business Bank is the authoritative source, so check the current position there before relying on any of the detail above.
CW Asset Finance is a credit broker, not a lender. Accreditation to the scheme sits with lenders, not with brokers, so we cannot offer or approve a scheme facility ourselves — what we can do is tell you which lenders on our panel are accredited and active, and put your case to them. Normal borrowing risks apply in full: repayments must be maintained, security or personal guarantees may be required, and default can lead to recovery action against the business and any guarantor. Approval is never guaranteed.