The British Business Bank has tripled its pre-tax profit to £426m while channelling a record £9.4bn of finance to smaller firms, proof, it says, that backing UK SMEs pays for the taxpayer as well as the borrower.
The state-owned lender’s Annual Report and Accounts for 2025/26, published today, show its largest profit since 2021/22, up sharply on the £144m it returned last year after two years of losses.
For business owners, the more telling numbers sit beneath the headline figure. Of the £9.4bn supported in the year, £1.3bn was public funding, £4.3bn was private capital crowded in alongside it, and £3.7bn came through lending the Bank guaranteed.
That reached 30,000 businesses that had never received Bank-supported funding before, plus 8,000 receiving follow-on finance. Notably for firms outside the capital, 87 per cent of newly supported businesses were based beyond London, and every UK Nation and region is expected to see a boost to economic output of more than £100m.
Louis Taylor, CEO of the British Business Bank, said: “The Bank has returned a pre-tax profit of £426m this year, a 3x increase on last year’s £144m profit. Our activities in 2025/26 are expected to produce an impact of 39,000 additional jobs and £8.8bn of gross value added over the life of the finance.”
Over the life of the finance, the Bank expects £19.7bn of additional business turnover, with 340,000 existing jobs supported alongside the 39,000 new ones. Some £5.3bn of the £8.8bn in expected gross value added will be generated outside London.
Guarantees are an increasingly large part of the story. Commitments rose 26 per cent to £2.5bn, including £1.3bn through the Growth Guarantee Scheme, the programme that gives accredited lenders a government-backed guarantee to say yes to viable smaller businesses they might otherwise turn away. The Bank’s own analysis has charted how far SME lending has shifted, with challenger banks now holding 60 per cent of the market.
The investment portfolio grew 25 per cent to £5.8bn, split between £4.4bn of equity and £1.5bn of debt, while £115m of realised gains took the Bank’s lifetime multiple on invested capital to 2.2x. Underlying operating costs fell to 1.08 per cent of assets under management, and the Bank recorded a 3.9 per cent five-year adjusted return.
The results land months into the Bank’s five-year strategic plan, which came with increased capacity of £2.5bn a year for new funded commitments and £2.1bn a year in guarantees.
Stephen Welton, Chair of the British Business Bank, said: “With two clear lines of business, over £25bn in financial capacity and greater flexibility, we are increasing access to finance for thousands of smaller businesses alongside supporting high growth innovative companies with equity investment. At a time when the UK must increase growth in every part of the country the role of the Bank, working closely with key partners on a local basis, is to do just that, targeting by 2030 up to 370,000 new jobs and up to £57bn of additional GVA under our Five-year Strategic Plan.”
Welton noted the Sheffield-headquartered Bank has more than half its workforce based outside its London office, and has delivered over £40bn of GVA and more than 250,000 additional jobs in its first decade. The full Annual Report and Accounts is available from the Bank.
For owners weighing up finance in the year ahead, the message is that the taps are open, and increasingly so outside the M25.
