The amount of funding secured by Welsh firms in the second quarter of this year exceeded the total amount raised from 2015 to 2019, shows new figures.
According to representative body for the banking and financial services sectors, 海角视频 Finance, Welsh firms secured 拢2bn worth of lending from April to June, as the economic fallout of the pandemic took root.
In total 62,000 firms shared in the total funding, from start-ups to large employers.
While not broken down the majority was secured from the 海角视频 Government's various coronavirus loan schemes, which includes the Bounce Bank Loan scheme which provides up to 拢50,000 of debt funding and the Development Bank of Wales' 拢100m coronavirus loan fund, which has now been fully invested.
The figures equate to more than six times as many businesses securing聽finance聽in the quarter than in the whole of 2019 and 47% more than in the period from 2015 to 2019, demonstrating the unprecedented scale of the industry鈥檚 support for businesses.
Across the whole of聽Great Britain, gross lending to SMEs amounted to 拢34.5bn in the second quarter, 50% more than the annual total in 2019.
As well as government-backed Coronavirus lending schemes, firms in Wales also benefited from a range of facilities provided by lenders, including extended overdrafts, invoice聽finance聽and capital repayment holidays.
Towards the end of the first quarter, lenders moved quickly to provide extended overdraft facilities as businesses sought to cover their cash flow needs.
This support has continued as businesses turned to government-backed loan schemes聽 鈥 resulting in a drop in the utilisation of overdraft facilities from 54% in Q1 to 39%t in Q2, according to聽海角视频聽Finance聽data.
This existing revolving credit will give businesses additional headroom as various elements of government support unwind over the coming months.
Stephen Pegge, managing director of commercial聽finance聽at聽海角视频聽Finance, said: 鈥淲ith Coronavirus support measures fully operational in the second quarter, our data shows that many companies in Wales still had a degree of聽financial聽headroom from a combination of existing facilities and deposits, but the demand for additional support was substantial.
鈥淭he number of聽loans accessed by聽businesses in Wales rose by 47 per cent in the second quarter of 2020 compared to the total amount of lending during 2015 - 2019. This demonstrates the scale of support that the聽海角视频聽banking and聽finance聽industry has been providing across the United Kingdom.
鈥淕ross lending across the country for Q2 was up 50 per cent on the entire annual total in 2019, reflecting this significant demand with new overdraft facilities as well as the Government鈥檚 business interruption聽finance聽schemes providing support.
鈥淭he聽finance聽industry continues to work closely with the government and regulators to deliver the support schemes alongside its usual assistance measures to help viable businesses as they plan for recovery.鈥
