LONDON (Reuters) – British businesses have taken out 48 billion pounds ($61 billion) in government-backed COVID-19 loans, up from 46 billion pounds a week earlier, finance ministry data showed on Tuesday.
The largest scheme, which offers lenders a 100% state guarantee on loans of up to 50,000 pounds to businesses, has lent 32.79 billion pounds to 1.084 million firms, a billion pounds more than the week before.
The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme has paid the wages for 9.4 million jobs, at a cost of 28.7 billion pounds so far.
(Reporting by David Milliken, editing by Andy Bruce)
