Update on the successful launch of Government-backed loans

Following on from last month’s update, the rollout of the Government-backed Recovery Loan Scheme (RLS) has continued to be well received by brokers and clients alike. Whilst we expected an initial surge in applications to then return to normal levels, we’ve instead seen that increase maintained. Alongside the high demand, we’ve also seen marketing messages around RLS have strong response, and brokers can continue to use it to engage with their clients.

As a reminder, RLS loans are available alongside our business loans, and your clients may be offered either one product or the other, but not both. To make things as simple as possible, you only need to make one application and we’ll assess which product they are eligible for.

Volume of applications

RLS messaging has landed well with customers across channels, with an increase of over 20% in volume from introducers since launch. This has been driven by brokers who have led with an RLS message which, alongside our successful campaigns in our Direct channel, has shown that there is significant interest among small businesses. Please reach out to your BDM for more details or to get examples of copy that landed particularly well, that you can use for your marketing efforts. 

Offer Rate

We targeted a 30% increase in offer rate and we’re still on track to meet this target. These are customers who we previously would have said no to, which shows how the scheme is allowing us to provide more businesses with the funding they need. 

Accept Rate 

One of our predictions was that the Accept Rate on RLS loans would be higher (despite the structure being different to previous RLS iterations). So far the accept rate remains significantly higher than it was previously, with brokers reporting better outcomes in general after conversations with those borrowers. 

Conclusion

RLS is helping us attract more customers, providing more of them with funding, as well as helping get more of them over the line. Do get in touch with your BDM to learn more around the specifics and to see how you can make the most of this opportunity.