Small firms still struggling to land Bounce Back loan cash

MORE than £40bn has been handed out to businesses in emergency taxpayer-backed loans – but hundreds of desperate firms are still waiting to even apply.

Many businesses who applied for lifeline Bounce Back loans, guaranteed by the Government, have struggled to get their hands on the cash.

Thousands have faced delays of weeks as banks struggled to process the tsunami of applications. But some customers – at Barclays in particular – face deeper problems, as they are still unable to apply.

Many of Barclays’ small business customers squeezed by the lockdown were relying on the bank after Chancellor Rishi Sunak launched the loan scheme in May. But as soon as they tried to apply online, thousands were confronted with error messages.

Several days later, they were told that there were some inconsistencies in their details which the bank needed to check, and they should wait for Barclays to get in touch.

More than a month down the line, many potential borrowers whose firms are on the brink of collapse are still waiting. Several customers who have spoken to the Mail were told by Barclays that red flags had been raised on their accounts, during anti-fraud checks.

Barclays declined to reveal why so many customers had been affected. It has so far lent £6bn in Bounce Back loans to 196,137 small businesses.

Across all UK banks, £28.1bn has been handed out in Bounce Back loans with £10.5bn lent to 50,482 firms under the scheme for slightly larger businesses.

Barclays said: ‘ We have approved more than 196,000 loans worth £6bn since the launch of Bounce Back and 99pc of customers have received their funds.’