The Covid loan book has a countdown

At mid-2024, well over half of BBLS facilities were still amortising on schedule toward a 2026 six-year final maturity — neither repaid nor defaulted, but closing on a date. CBILS was further advanced, with roughly 40% of facilities fully repaid. The settled-claims line, the government’s realised guarantee cost, had already climbed from £7.4bn to approaching £10bn. The book is not resolved. It has a countdown.

How large is the book that still needs to resolve?

The three pandemic schemes drew a combined £77bn between March 2020 and March 2021: BBLS (£46.5bn, ~1.5m businesses), CBILS (£25.8bn, ~109,000 businesses) and CLBILS (£4.5bn, ~750 larger businesses). Four years on, the book had not quietly resolved itself. CLBILS, which served larger companies on shorter facilities, was the furthest advanced and by mid-2024 was effectively wound down. CBILS was moving steadily through repayment. BBLS was the laggard, because its six-year original term kept the majority of the 2020 cohort in-flight until 2026 unless Pay As You Grow extensions had been taken.

Pay As You Grow, the government’s 2021 package of flexible repayment options for BBLS borrowers, allowed businesses to extend to ten years, take repayment holidays or move to interest-only for limited periods. Roughly 35% of BBLS businesses used at least one PAYG option, which pushed a meaningful slice of the original 2026 maturities further out toward 2030. The remaining 65% are on their original schedule.

What does the CBILS picture look like?

CBILS businesses are a more varied group. The scheme ran from March 2020 to March 2021 and covered facilities from £50,000 to £5m, with terms of three to six years. Three-year CBILS facilities were therefore already reaching their original maturity dates through 2023–24, which is why the fully-repaid share of CBILS was advancing much faster than BBLS: from 30% of facilities in June 2023 toward an estimated 39% by mid-2024. The on-schedule share was falling correspondingly as those shorter-term facilities closed out.

For the lower-mid-market borrower, where CBILS tickets of £1m–£5m were common, the practical question by autumn 2024 was straightforward: if a six-year CBILS facility was drawn in mid-2020, it matured in mid-2026. The lead time to organise a refinancing from a position of strength was already compressing.

The Jun 2024 CBILS columns are extrapolated from the hard Jun 2023 release at the observed repayment rate. The on-schedule share declined faster as shorter-term facilities closed.

What should a borrower with an outstanding Covid facility do now?

The first step is to locate the exact final maturity date on the facility letter, which is not always the same as the last scheduled repayment instalment. BBLS borrowers who did not use Pay As You Grow should assume a 2026 final maturity. CBILS borrowers should check where in the three-to-six-year range their term sits; the population spans the full range, and the date differs by up to three years.

From there, the logic is the same as any planned refinancing: begin twelve to eighteen months ahead, prepare the credit story as if the lender had never seen the business, and run a competitive process. The Covid balance does not disqualify a well-performing borrower; it is a disclosed liability that any lender in this market expects to see. What disqualifies a borrower is arriving late, with a compressed timeline and no alternatives to the incumbent bank. That pressure is entirely avoidable for anyone who starts in 2024 rather than 2026.

The rising settled-claims line in the BBLS data, approaching £10bn of realised government payouts by mid-2024, is a measure of the cohort that did not navigate this. For the majority still on schedule, it is a reminder that the wall is not hypothetical.