The UK infrastructure bank opens

The UK government on 17 June 2021 launched the UK Infrastructure Bank, a new national infrastructure bank headquartered in Leeds.

The bank will make available finance for projects across the UK in clean energy, transport, digital, water and waste. It is tasked tasked with accelerating investment into ambitious infrastructure projects, cutting emissions and levelling up. The Bank will also lend to local authorities. 

The bank is launching in an interim form and will scale up in capability and capacity over time.  It will have an initial GBP 12 billion of capital to deploy and will be able to issue GBP 10 billion of government guarantees. The guarantees are intended to unlock more than GBP 40 billion of overall investment.  The bank will offer a wide range of of financing tools including debt, equity, and guarantees. The ability of the bank to invest equity could be very significant in stimulating the development of the first industrial scale projects in new industries such as carbon capture and green hydrogen, where private sector funds may be unable to invest.

The UK Infrastructure Bank will form an essential part of the government’s National Infrastructure Strategy and will complement the existing expertise of the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) and the National Infrastructure Commission.  

UK businesses and communities will have billions of pounds available from today (17 June) as Chancellor Rishi Sunak opens the new UK Infrastructure Bank to support local growth and tackle climate change.