The Finance & Leasing Association is urging the government to extend its financial support to the non-bank lending market.

It says that next week it will reveal figures showing that FLA members provided close to £141bn of new business in the year to February 2020, of which £46bn came through non-bank lenders.

The FLA ads that Covid-19-related requests to non-bank lenders rose 1,000 per cent in the week of 16 March, growing another 249 per cent the week after.

While the FLA welcomes the various financial support schemes already announced, “non-bank lenders rely heavily on the capital markets and bank funding, which are essentially closed to them. Support needs to be provided to non-bank lenders to help them deal with the huge cashflow drain from forbearance,” says FLA director general Stephen Haddrill.

“This sector needs urgent government help to ensure that it is still in a position to lend to individuals and businesses when the current market disruption ends, because without their input, the UK’s economic recovery will be much slower.”

The FLA was one of the respondents in the Treasury Committee’s recent call for evidence on the economic impact of coronavirus.