Barclays has announced an extra £88 million to lend to SMEs through the Enterprise Finance Guarantee (EFG), which was introduced during the downturn to help more businesses get finance.

The scheme enables Barclays to lend to viable businesses that, because they cannot offer sufficient security to meet normal commercial lending, would not otherwise be able to get the finance for their business to survive and grow.

Barclays has already made available over £150 million in EFG loans in the last year, or almost one in every four EFG loans across the UK.

Steve Cooper, managing director of Barclays Local Business, said: “Time and again over the last year EFG has proven to be a superb way to support worthy businesses. We’re a big believer in EFG – through it we’ve been able to assist over 1