A desperate businessman is appealing to a bank to give him his government loan before his company goes under.

Abolfazl Dawood-Abadi, owner of Times Saverbox LTD, a keyless parcel delivery box, based in Neasden, applied for a Government Recovery Loan Scheme (RLS) from HSBC bank in July.

But he says he hasn't received a penny from the high street bank despite appealing to them for three months.

A spokesperson for HSBC apologised for Mr Dawood-Abadi's customer service "experience" and said his application "has not been approved and our assessment is ongoing".

Mr Dawood-Abadi has had no option but to take out a 30K personal loan from Barclays Bank to cover his business expenses of £5-6,000 a month while waiting for HSBC to make the loan payment.

“The guy from HSBC said he was going on annual leave and would pass my case to his colleague, but I received no further correspondence," he said.

“The next person working on my case is not answering my calls or text messages.

"It’s caused me stress every day just to wait for the news that never arrives.”

The RLS was launched on April 6, administered by HSBC.

The purpose of the scheme was to help UK businesses badly affected by coronavirus to access finance to aid cash flow, investment and growth.

Mr Dawood-Abadi contacted HSBC using the online banking app and the bank agreed to escalate the matter but still nothing was done.

“If someone who works for me treated a customer like that, I would give them the sack,” he added.

“It shouldn’t be this hard to get a loan, especially when us business owners, are the ones helping the UK’s economy.”

A spokesperson for HSBC said: “We have contacted Mr Dawood-Abadi to apologise that the customer service he experienced does not meet the standards we strive for.

“We understand the pressures that are facing small businesses, but we take the time to consider each application on an individual case by case basis.

“We would take into account affordability, in line with the scheme rules set out by the British Business Bank."

A spokesperson for the British Business Bank said:

“All lending decisions under the Recovery Loan Scheme have been fully delegated to the scheme’s accredited lenders. "