Supporting our customers and clients impacted by coronavirus (COVID-19)

During this period, we understand that many customers and clients are experiencing a range of difficulties, whether that’s customers making repayments on their mortgage or clients experiencing challenges with cash flow and beyond.

Across the UK, Barclays is helping with access to finance and wider support. We are proactively contacting businesses and notifying customers to help them navigate the challenges and uncertainty generated by coronavirus (COVID-19).

Personal Banking

Whether it’s providing additional support with managing money, or working with customers who have faced disruption to finances or travel plans, we are constantly looking at ways to make things easier. New measures include:

• Overdrafts: We have waived all interest from 27 March 2020 until the end of April 2020, meaning no charges for customers to use their agreed overdraft. Customers don’t need to call us to set this up, interest was automatically removed from 27 March 2020.
• Mortgages: We are speeding up the residential and buy-to-let mortgage payment holiday application for customers in financial difficulty with a new, easy to use, online form. 

Find out more about these measures and other available support.

Business Banking

We are here to help businesses through this challenging time – in whatever way we can. New measures of support include:

• Free everyday banking: To help our new and existing business customers with an annual turnover up to £250,000, between 13 March and 12 June, we’re offering free everyday banking we’re waiving fees and interest on overdrafts incurred between these dates.
• Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS): Launched on 23 March 2020, this scheme is there to provide eligible businesses with lending of up to £5 million and the government will cover the first 12 months of interest payments. We do not require personal guarantees on CBILS loans of any size. We hope that this will give businesses more confidence to use CBILS as it will help simplify the application process and enable us to more quickly help businesses access the support they need at this critical time. 

Find out more about these measures and other available support.

Further Government Support

• Businesses who employ staff can apply for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and the statutory sick pay rebate
• Nursery businesses could get a business rates holiday for the 2020-21 tax year
• Retail, Hospitality and Leisure businesses could also get a business rates holiday, plus a cash grant of up to £25k per property
• Small businesses which occupy a property and receive small business rate relief, rural rate relief and tapered relief may be eligible for Small Business Grant Funding
• All business types may be eligible to defer VAT and tax payments
• Self-employed people can apply for a grant through the Self-employment Income Support Scheme, worth 80% of their profits up to a cap of £2,500 per month

Corporate Banking

We know that coronavirus (COVID-19) is placing challenges on many of our clients’ day-to-day operations. Our relationship teams are ready to work with you and provide appropriate support. New measures of support in place include:

• Covid-19 Corporate Finance Facility (CCFF): This is available to support corporates who would normally seek market-based finance for their working capital. The facility stands ready to support unlimited financing to eligible companies
• Job Retention Scheme: A Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme whereby those who might otherwise have been laid off due to the Covid-19 outbreak can be kept on thanks to the Government reimbursing 80% of an employees’ wages up to a maximum of £2,500 per month
• International Trade: A number of measures are now available to support international clients and customers. These include streamlined access to Barclays Trade Loan solution, enabling payments to your supplier base to be tailored to your trade cycle. We have also introduced a simplified process for requests to extend existing trade loan facilities and enabled bespoke solutions for submission of Trade related documentation, like guarantee applications, to support clients working from home.

Find out more about these measures and other available support.

Further Government Support

• Business rates are to be suspended for all retail, hospitality and leisure businesses in England, for 12 months. This has been extended to also include nurseries.
• VAT is deferred from 20 March 2020 to 30 June 2020
• Grants of £25,000 will be made available for smaller retail, hospitality and leisure businesses with a rateable value between £15,000 and £51,000
• Hospitality and leisure businesses that have been forced to close following government advice will be able to claim on their insurance where they have the appropriate cover for a pandemic
• Pubs and restaurants that do not already provide takeaways will be able to do so without submitting a planning application.