The Enterprise Finance Guarantee (EFG)

From January 2012, the EFG will be extended to include businesses with an annual turnover of up to £44 million.

Business Finance Partnership

Businesses will be helped to raise funds from non-bank sources by making available an initial £1 billion through a Business Finance Partnership, to invest in mid-sized businesses and SMEs in the UK. The process of allocating funds will start early in 2012.

The National Loan Guarantee Scheme

Banks that participate in the new National Loan Guarantee Scheme will be able to raise up to a total of £20 billion of cheaper funding over the next two years under a government guarantee, provided they pass through this lower cost of funding to smaller businesses. In many cases, this will lead to a reduction of up to one percentage point on the cost of business loans under the scheme.

The scheme will focus on new loans and overdrafts. Firms with a turnover of up to £50 million should be able to apply for these funds through participating banks in the usual way. The scheme will be operational as soon as possible, subject to state aid approval.