Secretary of State Lord Mandelson, Secretary of State for the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, has announced a package of measures designed to help the cash flow, credit and investment needs of small and medium businesses.

The support package consists of loan guarantees and a new Enterprise Fund aimed at helping companies struggling to access finance for working capital and investment. The Government measures include:

• a £10bn Working Capital Scheme, securing up to £20bn of short term bank lending to companies with a turnover of up to £500m;
• an Enterprise Finance Guarantee Scheme, securing up to £1.3bn of additional bank loans to small firms with a turnover of up to £25m; and
• a £75m Capital for Enterprise Fund (£50m from Government augmented by £25m from the banks) to invest in small businesses which need equity.

Richard Wilson, CEO of Tiga, said:

“Managing cash flow is crucially important for all businesses. Many games developers use bank finance to help fund their operations. Measures to promote the availability of credit, if effective, will be supported by the industry.

“Tiga will monitor the effectiveness of both the Government’s and the Bank of England’s counter-recessionary policies in the months ahead. The Government will almost certainly need to take further measures to increase the availability of credit and strengthen the banks.”