Five-year Strategic Plan

The British Business Bank has launched its first-ever Five-Year Strategic Plan, focused on a clear mission to drive economic growth by helping smaller businesses get the finance they need to start, scale and stay in the UK. 

With greater financial capacity and more flexibility to operate in the market, we’re stepping up our role in unlocking finance for smaller businesses—driving growth, innovation, and opportunity across the country. 

The plan outlines how the Bank will act through its Investment and Banking businesses, and its Business Development function, to deliver the following commitments:

• Catalyse more capital: We will increase our annual deployment by two-thirds, unlocking around £26bn of private capital alongside £13bn of our funding, and enable up to £10bn in smaller business lending through guarantees.
• Take more risk: We will take on additional risk, including through providing the first capital in deals that support emerging technologies where the UK can lead globally. We will use our greater risk appetite at portfolio level to prioritise deployment to Industrial Strategy sectors.
• Focus on scale-ups: We will target over 60% of venture and venture-growth investment towards scale-ups, with the ability to write larger cheques (£100m+) into the best growth-stage funds.
• Make more direct investments: We will increase the number and size of such investments so strategically important scale-ups can raise domestic capital and grow at home.
• Unlock potential across the country: We will deliver 85,000 new Start Up Loans and commit £150m to Community Development Finance Institutions to support underserved groups. We will increase regional investment and support the development of regional science and innovation clusters, new regional angel networks and establish two new regional investment funds in the East and South-East of England.
• Reform the Bank, we will reform our governance and operating model, giving us greater licence to operate flexibly, and streamline internal processes to make faster investment decisions.