Backing the UK through COVID-19

In March, the rhinos, gorillas and other exotic animals at the Aspinall Foundation’s wildlife parks were looking forward to thousands of people visiting them during the Easter holidays and summer months. Instead, Covid-19 forced the parks to close, leaving the owners with more than 1,300 animals to feed and care for, but no income with which to do so.

Fortunately, the Aspinall Foundation was able to turn to their Relationship Director at Barclays, who understood their business and approved a £2 million loan through the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) to help them through this very difficult period.

Hundreds of thousands of UK businesses found themselves in similar situations, and Barclays moved quickly to back our customers. Within six months of the launch of the government’s business support schemes, Barclays had provided companies across the UK with more than £23 billion of finance.

In every corner of the UK, Barclays has been able to mobilise this much-needed help for local businesses. So far, we have approved more than 275,000 Bounce Back Loans to the UK’s smallest businesses and more than £11.9 billion of paper issuance to larger corporates as part of the Covid Corporate Finance Facility.

Beyond this, we have also launched our £100 million Covid-19 Community Aid Fund to help charities working to support vulnerable people impacted by the virus and alleviate the associated social and economic hardship. As our Group CEO, Jes Staley, has said: ‘We have been doing all we can to look after our customers, clients and colleagues through this crisis. We want to do more to back the communities in which we live and work.’

While we do not know how long Covid-19 will be with us, we do know that creating jobs and growth will be vital to enabling the UK’s society to look to the future with hope and optimism. To support this, Barclays is looking to what else we can do, beyond financial support, to back the UK.

To support this, we are evolving our national network of Barclays-run business incubators, called Eagle Labs, to help the UK’s culture of innovation and collaboration. Through providing online resources and forums for interaction via the Eagle Labs, Barclays is helping start-ups to connect, innovate and grow throughout the pandemic.

Barclays also recognises that, as the UK’s economy adapts, there is an opportunity to create a more equitable environment for female entrepreneurs. Currently only a third of UK business owners are women. To change this, we are a founding signatory of the government’s Investing in Women code, taking action to close this entrepreneurship gender gap with measures designed to boost the resources and financial support available to female founders in the coming years.

The road to recovery is uncertain but through working with our charity partners, supporting our customers and clients, and boosting entrepreneurship and innovation where we can, Barclays is backing the UK to recapture its ability to create jobs, innovate — and ultimately return to strong economic growth.