Three votes to hike: the lending boom just got a higher price tag

UK B2B credit and lending news digest, 26 July–1 August 2026

Summary

New this week: Fortress Investment Group agreed to purchase up to $1.5bn of Wayflyer-originated SME funding assets under a three-year forward-flow agreement announced on 30 July — taking Wayflyer’s total deployable capacity to $4.5bn over the next 24 months and marking the largest single institutional commitment to UK-facing SME credit this year (1).

Three themes ran through the week. First, the results wall: Barclays, Lloyds and NatWest all reported half-year numbers showing commercial lending books growing — Lloyds added £5.9bn of commercial balances in the half, NatWest £5.7bn in the second quarter alone — while impairment charges rose from a low base rather than jumped (2)(3)(4). Second, the price of that credit moved: the Bank of England held Bank Rate at 3.75% on a 6–3 vote, with all three dissents voting to raise — and money markets now price the next move as a hike, not a cut (5)(6). Third, the real-economy layer that trade credit flows into is thinning beneath stable headline values: May’s builders’ merchant value sales were flat at −0.1% while plumbing and heating merchants sold 8% fewer units at prices up 10.1% (7)(8).

The consequence of the combination: more credit is arriving, at a structurally higher price, into an economy where volumes are falling behind values. When capital is this available and this expensive, the differentiator shifts to underwriting quality — and the week’s flagship deal makes the point directly: forward-flow buyers like Fortress price on the quality of the originator’s underwriting data. The lenders and trade creditors who can evidence how their books actually behave will fund cheaper and lose less than those who can’t.

1. Key developments

• Wayflyer and Fortress signed a $1.5bn forward-flow agreement (30 July, new): Fortress will purchase up to $1.5bn of Wayflyer-originated SME assets over three years, on top of Q1’s $250m ATLAS SP facility; Wayflyer has deployed $6bn+ to SMEs since 2020 (1).
• The Bank of England held at 3.75% with a hawkish 6–3 split (30 July, new): three members voted to raise to 4% on energy-price persistence; CPI at 2.6% is expected to rise later this year; the next decision is not until 17 September (5).
• The Big Four results wall confirmed expanding commercial credit supply (28–31 July, new): Lloyds commercial balances +£5.9bn in H1; NatWest Commercial & Institutional +£5.7bn in Q2 with a 19bps H1 impairment rate; Barclays’ UK Corporate Bank grew income 8% year-on-year — while Barclays lifted its motor-finance provision to £430m (2)(3)(4).
• Business borrowing accelerated again (29 July, new): UK non-financial businesses borrowed £2.7bn net in June, up from £2.3bn in May, per the Bank’s Money & Credit release (6).
• Paragon grew commercial lending 8.2% in its Q3 update (29 July, new) to £940m for the nine months, with development finance rebounding late in the quarter to a £610m pipeline and buy-to-let arrears down to 40bps (9).
• Monzo became the first UK digital bank to pass one million business customers (28 July, new) — one in six UK businesses now banks with it, and it was 2025’s top business current-account switching destination (10).

2. Market signals

Credit quality and risk

The half-year prints put numbers on a divergence this digest has tracked for several weeks: lender credit metrics remain benign while enforcement and early-warning indicators deteriorate. Lloyds’ impairment charge rose to £616m from £442m a year earlier — driven mainly by model updates rather than observed defaults (2). Barclays’ 62bps loan-loss rate sits at the top of its guided range, and included a £228m single-name investment-bank charge (3). NatWest, at 19bps with “arrears low, asset quality strong”, is the outlier on the strong side (4). Set against that: winding-up petitions remain at a three-year high — Q1’s 1,885 petitions were up 5% year-on-year and 66% above 2023, with HMRC understood to be driving the majority (11) — and EY-Parthenon counted 59 profit warnings in Q2, with policy and geopolitical uncertainty cited at the highest rate in over 25 years and housebuilders prominent (12). Premium Credit’s survey adds a liquidity read: 52% of SMEs are struggling to pay tax bills, and 21% expect to borrow to do so (13). The gap between benign lender book metrics and rising creditor enforcement is where the next repricing forms.

Credit supply and lending conditions

Supply is expanding on every visible axis. Bank commercial books grew across all three reporters; business borrowing accelerated for a second month; and the specialist end kept raising — iwoca’s £250m facility with Waterfall Asset Management is now confirmed alongside a striking demand signal: 96,000 UK SMEs funded, up from 60,000 in 2024, with £50k–£100k loans rising from 27% to 42% of applications in a year (14). The Growth Guarantee Scheme expansion announced mid-July continues to propagate through lender appetite (15). The constraint is no longer availability; it is price — and the MPC’s hawkish split just extended how long that price holds (5).

3. Where risk is building

• Trade-account providers: price is carrying the sector. May’s BMBI report (published 30 July) shows builders’ merchant like-for-like value sales at −0.1%; the Plumbing & Heating Merchant Index, published the same day, shows value up 1.3% on volumes down 8.0% and prices up 10.1% (7)(8). A trade-account book can look flat in sterling while the businesses behind it trade materially fewer units — receivables quality diverges from ledger value precisely in that gap. Lords Group’s half-year update (30 July) shows the same mechanics managed well: revenue held at £232m on acquisitions and new branches against weaker underlying demand, with sequential improvement through the half (16).
• Construction’s supplier chain keeps crystallising losses. Roughly 90 UK construction companies have entered administration this year to date (17); this week added Ayrshire engineering firm Wallace McDowall (31 July, ~200 jobs at risk) (18), and engineering supplier United Tooling Solutions collapsed owing a reported £43.7m deficiency (19). The CPA’s summer forecast — 2026 output down 3.3%, private housing down 10% — remains the demand backdrop (20).
• The motor-finance overhang is now reshaping balance sheets and ownership. Barclays raised its redress provision to £430m; Lloyds held its provision but took a £78m residual-value charge; the FCA scheme remains partially suspended with the tribunal hearing not expected before December 2026 (2)(3)(21). Unquantified liability is doing what it always does: freezing decisions and forcing sales.
• SME liquidity strain is showing in tax behaviour. Half of SMEs struggling with tax bills, a fifth planning to borrow for them, HMRC driving winding-up petitions — the state is becoming the most assertive creditor in the system (11)(13). On the late-payment framework itself, a quieter week: the Commercial Payments Bill — the 60-day terms cap covered in last week’s edition — sits at Lords committee stage with no new step, and there were no new Fair Payment Code or Small Business Commissioner announcements or payment-practices disclosures of note (58).

4. Friction signals and where credit is failing

• The Aldermore sale process is a live case study in redress friction. Metro Bank, Shawbrook and Lloyds have all been reported as weighing bids at around £2bn — but bidders are expected to demand indemnities against further motor-finance liabilities, and FirstRand is reportedly resistant to share-based structures (22). A willing seller, multiple willing buyers, and a liability nobody can size: that is credit friction at the M&A layer.
• Redress-linked lending decisions remain in limbo. With the FCA scheme partially suspended and hearings listed for December 2026 or February 2027, affected lenders can neither pay nor fully release — capital stays reserved against an unquantified bill into 2027 (21).
• No named public tightening this week — but continued selective constraint at the mainstream end of development finance: Paragon’s own numbers show the rebound arrived only late in the quarter, and the CPA’s −10% private-housing forecast explains why appetite stays project-selective (9)(20).
• The price of risk moved up, quietly. Ten-year gilts touched 5.06% mid-window — the highest since May — and markets are pricing nearer two hikes than any cut by year-end. Floating-rate borrowers are repricing now, not at the next review (23).

5. Who is doing what

Bank behaviour layer and the big four

• Lloyds — this week: H1 results (30 July). Commercial Banking balances +£5.9bn in the half; impairment £616m (up from £442m, model-driven); NIM 3.19%; motor-finance provision held with only a £78m residual-value charge; guidance reiterated. The read: growing business books into a slowing economy, with credit caution expressed through models rather than appetite (2).
• Barclays — this week: H1 results (28 July). Pre-tax profit £6.1bn and the 2026 income target raised; UK Corporate Bank income +8% with NII +15%; but credit impairment rose to £1.4bn (62bps, top of guided range) and the motor provision went to £430m. Expansion with a visibly thicker loss line (3).
• NatWest — this week: H1 results (31 July). Attributable profit £3.0bn, RoTE 19.7%, guidance upgraded; C&I lending +£5.7bn in Q2, £1.9bn to social housing; impairment 19bps. The most confident credit posture of the three (4).
• HSBC — no new signal this week: interims land 4 August; prior stance holds (growth-led UK commercial appetite). The absence of one Big Four print makes next Tuesday the week’s first marker (24).

All three reporters grew business lending while flagging higher — but manageable — impairments. When every major bank expands into the same slowing economy at once, competition concentrates on price for the credits everyone can read, and the margin migrates to those who can read the harder ones.

Lenders tightening

No named public tightening moves this week. The caution signals are quieter: top-of-range loss guidance at Barclays, indemnity demands shaping the Aldermore process, and development-finance appetite that stays project-selective rather than open-book (3)(9)(22).

Lenders expanding

• Wayflyer — the $1.5bn Fortress forward flow, plus $4.5bn of total deployable capacity (1).
• iwoca — £250m facility confirmed; 96,000 UK SMEs funded and rising loan sizes (14).
• Paragon — advances +4.3% to £2.06bn for nine months; commercial lending +8.2%; new agricultural and bridging teams (9).
• Close Brothers Property Finance — £20m revolving credit facility for developer gs8, unlocking a site previously stalled in receivership (25).
• United Trust Bank — £13m acquisition-and-development facility for a 33-home Southport scheme at 89% loan-to-cost (26).
• Leumi ABL — structured a £20m revolving block discounting facility for leasing specialist Compass Business Finance — funder-of-funders capacity still flowing (27).
• Triple Point — up to £50m senior facility for inclusive lender Plend: private credit continuing to fund the fintech lending layer (28).
• Mercia Asset Management — £38m of new Metro Bank facilities backing its growth strategy, alongside plans to raise up to £500m for a real-estate development debt fund run by its Frontier Development Capital team (29)(30).
• ModaMortgages — fee-free limited-edition buy-to-let range at up to 80% LTV (31).
• River Capital — passed £10m deployed through the North West Business Growth Loan Fund (32).
• Catching up from earlier in July, the specialist funding pipeline was busier than it looked: Together priced a £562.9m securitisation, Bibby Financial Services agreed a €250m facility with HSBC UK, Ultimate Finance’s loan book hit a record £430m, LendInvest reported a record £1.44bn origination year, and Market Harborough Building Society bought a £120m mortgage portfolio (33)(34)(35)(36)(37).
• At the quiet end: no public moves this week from Allica or Atom — notable mainly because the rest of the specialist market was loud. OakNorth’s silence came with a signal attached: it is hiring credit directors (see §7).

6. Capital and funding

The funding market’s message this week was “available, but dearer, and increasingly data-priced”. The MPC’s 6–3 hold with three votes to hike pushed any relief further out — markets now price rate risk to the upside into 2027 — and ten-year gilts at 5.06% mid-week set the highest funding floor since May (5)(23). Public issuance is seasonally slowing after the busiest covered-bond June since 2010; Together’s £563m July securitisation remains the reference deal at the specialist end (33). The structural shift is in private structures: forward flows (Wayflyer–Fortress), asset-backed facilities (iwoca–Waterfall, Plend–Triple Point), and bank-on-nonbank lines (Mercia–Metro, Compass–Leumi ABL) are doing the work warehouse lines and equity used to do (1)(14)(27)(28)(29). Forward-flow economics reward one thing above all: demonstrable underwriting performance. Capital deployment increasingly follows the data trail.

7. People moves and leadership signals

• Pivot appointed Clare Atkins as finance director and board member (18 years in financial services, ex-LendInvest), and promoted Chris King to chief investment officer, Slav Melnikovs to senior credit manager and PakSan Wu to director of strategy and capital — a specialist property lender institutionalising after its Foresight-backed management buyout (38).
• Time Finance hired Emma Caton as relationship manager, invoice finance north — an ex-RBS, HSBC, Bibby and eCapital book-builder, and a signal that invoice-finance distribution hiring continues in the regions (39).
• BCLP hired structured-finance partner Jérémie Bismuth in London — the advisory bench behind private-credit structures keeps deepening, consistent with where §6 says the market is going (40).
• The Financial Ombudsman Service confirmed Jenny Simmonds as permanent chief executive and James Dipple-Johnstone as chief ombudsman just before the window — continuity at the body that will administer much of the redress era (41).
• No Big Four executive moves this week; across the challenger, BNPL, insurer and restructuring lenses, no other material moves were verified in-window.
• Open seats: OakNorth is advertising a Director of Credit (Trading Businesses, London) and an Associate Director of Credit (London/Manchester), both live on its own careers board this week (42). Meanwhile Capital on Tap’s senior credit-risk analyst posting and Tide’s credit-risk specialist posting have both recently closed. The pattern: origination-side credit leadership hiring at the specialist banks, while the card and embedded end rotates hiring toward portfolio management and collections — build the book at one end of the market, watch it at the other.

8. From the industry

Brokers and intermediaries. A quiet news week in the broker channel itself: the NACFB opened submissions for its Commercial Lender Awards (29 July) (43), and the FLA’s letter urging the Chancellor to modernise “outdated lending rules” — arguing the Consumer Credit Act perimeter holds back investment lending — continues to frame the channel’s policy ask (44). The next hard broker-channel data point is UK Finance’s quarterly Business Finance Review; until then, the strongest demand signal remains iwoca’s application mix shifting decisively toward larger tickets (14).

Trade-account providers and trade credit. The week’s merchant data belongs in every credit committee pack: value flat, volumes down, prices doing the work (7)(8). Within that, the counter-signals were real — Bradfords, Howarth Timber and the Encon Group were named finalists across the BMJ Industry Awards (winners 25 September) (45), E H Smith made the BMF engagement shortlist alongside Tippers and IBMG (46), construction-sector confidence actually rose in July with 54% of surveyed firms citing stronger customer demand (47), and London housing starts staged their strongest recovery in over a year even as national starts slid 4% (48). Forterra’s half-year illustrated the creditor’s dilemma from the supplier side: revenue down 13.5% in a brick market off 8%, yet profit up on cost discipline — the businesses selling into this market can be simultaneously shrinking and healthier (49). The operational implication for anyone extending trade accounts: terms set on 2024 volumes are now mispriced for 2026 realities, and the drift is only visible in live payment behaviour, not in the onboarding file.

Alternative lenders, insurers and the credit system. Atradius warned this week that EU moves to harmonise insolvency regimes prioritise speed over creditor interests — a live consideration for anyone with European receivables exposure (50). Allianz Trade’s standing UK view — insolvencies plateauing around 26,550 this year, roughly 30% above pre-2020 norms — still frames the loss environment: elevated but not escalating (51). Fraud enforcement had a visible week at the small end: a fourth director was disqualified over a £13.9m Barclays unauthorised-overdraft scam, and a Bounce Back Loan fraudster received a suspended sentence for borrowing against a company that never traded (52)(53). Direction: first-party and identity fraud in business lending is being caught years after origination. Exposure: onboarding remains the gate it slipped through. Consequence: KYB depth at onboarding plus behavioural monitoring afterwards is the only pairing that catches both ends.

Where Grand fits. Every built-world business buys on credit, but paying well counts for nothing — every credit check starts from zero. Grand makes it count: for the businesses earning trust, and for the ones extending it. This was a week that priced the point: when Fortress buys $1.5bn of SME assets on the strength of an originator’s underwriting evidence, accumulated payment behaviour is functioning as capital. Grand exists to make that evidence portable — heygrand.com.

9. What this means

• Where is risk increasing? In the gap between flat sterling values and falling volumes across the trade-credit economy — and in the enforcement layer, where HMRC-led winding-up petitions run 66% above 2023 while headline insolvencies fall. The books that look stable in value terms are carrying quietly riskier counterparties (7)(8)(11).
• Where is credit flowing — and failing? Flowing: commercial bank books, specialist forward flows, funder-of-funders facilities. Failing: wherever unquantified redress liability sits — the Aldermore process shows credit-adjacent M&A gummed by a bill nobody can size until 2027 (1)(2)(22).
• Who is tightening vs expanding? Expansion is broad and named — Wayflyer, iwoca, Paragon, Close Brothers, UTB, Leumi ABL, Triple Point, Mercia. Tightening is nobody by name, but everybody at the margin: top-of-range loss guidance, model-driven provisions, indemnity demands, project-selective development appetite (3)(9)(22).
• What actually changed this week? The price expectation. Three MPC votes to hike converted “higher for longer” from a market fear into a policy signal. Every floating-rate exposure, every term sheet in negotiation and every 2027 refinancing just got repriced — while the volume of capital seeking SME credit assets went up, not down (1)(5).

10. Operator actions

Where the week’s signals appear to be landing for credit operators — observations on the direction of travel, not recommendations.

• On pricing: the hawkish 6–3 split points toward funding costs staying elevated into 2027; teams are observed re-testing floating-rate counterparties’ serviceability at current rates rather than at the cuts previously assumed — this looks more like a repricing already due than a future risk (5)(23).
• On trade accounts: the value-flat/volume-down merchant data points toward receivables books whose risk composition has shifted without the ledger moving; the teams ahead of this are watching live order volumes and payment drift on accounts whose terms were set in higher-volume years (7)(8).
• On counterparty monitoring: with HMRC driving winding-up petitions to three-year highs while headline insolvency falls, the signal points toward tax arrears as the earliest visible distress marker — a counterparty current with suppliers but behind with HMRC is increasingly the profile that fails next (11)(13).
• On funding strategy: forward-flow and asset-backed structures are rewarding originators who can evidence underwriting performance; the direction of travel is that portfolio data quality is becoming a funding-cost input, not just a risk input (1)(14).
• On fraud: the week’s enforcement actions land years after origination; the signal points toward pairing onboarding KYB depth with post-onboarding behavioural checks, since the fraud that clears the gate is the fraud that compounds (52)(53).

11. Week ahead

• Tuesday 4 August — HSBC interim results: the final Big Four print, with the UK commercial banking read and any Innovation Banking disclosure (24). Travis Perkins half-year results are also expected, opening the merchant results season in earnest; Metro Bank reports the same day (54).
• Wednesday 5 August — Shawbrook interim results: first set since its LSE listing and the first consolidating ThinCats (55). Finning reports Q2 after the US close (56).
• Thursday 6 August — S&P Global UK Construction PMI for July, the first hard read on whether July’s confidence uptick reached activity (47).
• Week of 10 August — S&U’s pre-close trading statement is due on last year’s cadence; Secure Trust Bank interims follow on 13 August (57).
• Mid-August — FLA June asset-finance statistics and the Insolvency Service’s July company insolvency numbers (44).
• 17 September — the next MPC decision: no rate event until then, leaving six weeks of data to argue with three hike votes (5).

12. Upcoming events

• 25 September — BMJ Industry Awards (Builders Merchants Journal, Hilton Bankside, London). The merchant sector’s benchmark night; this year’s finalist list doubles as a health-check of the strongest trade-credit franchises (45).
• 17 September — Bank of England MPC decision (Bank of England, London). The first opportunity for the three-vote hike camp to become a majority (5).
• 18 November — Credit Connect Leaders Dinner (Credit Connect, Manchester). Senior credit and collections leadership networking ahead of the main conference.
• 19 November — Autumn Commercial Credit & Collections Conference (Credit Connect, Manchester). The practitioner event for commercial credit management — squarely this digest’s audience.
• 19 November — Credit & Collections Technology Awards (Credit Connect, Manchester). Technology benchmark for the credit and collections stack, run alongside the conference.

References

1. Business Wire — Wayflyer and Fortress announce $1.5 billion forward flow agreement to fund small businesses (30 July 2026)
2. Lloyds Banking Group — 2026 half-year results (RNS) (30 July 2026)
3. Barclays — Half-year financial report (RNS) (28 July 2026)
4. NatWest Group — H1 2026 results (31 July 2026)
5. Bank of England — Monetary Policy Summary and minutes, July 2026 (30 July 2026)
6. Bank of England — Money and Credit, June 2026 (29 July 2026)
7. Builders Merchants Journal — BMBI releases May 2026 report (30 July 2026)
8. Builders Merchants Journal — PHMI publishes May report (30 July 2026)
9. Paragon Banking Group — Q3 trading update (29 July 2026)
10. Yahoo Finance — Monzo passes landmark one million business customers (28 July 2026)
11. Credit Connect — Winding-up petitions hit three-year high as creditors lose patience (23 July 2026)
12. Credit Connect — Profit warnings rise in Q2 (22 July 2026)
13. Credit Connect — Half of SMEs struggling to pay tax bills (23 July 2026)
14. FinTech Global — iwoca secures £250m facility to boost UK SME lending (28 July 2026)
15. HM Treasury — Chancellor to unlock billions in finance for small businesses (13 July 2026)
16. Builders Merchants Journal — Lords publishes H1 update (30 July 2026)
17. Administrator.uk — Construction companies in administration, 2026 tracker (accessed 1 August 2026)
18. Insolvency Insider UK — Wallace McDowall enters administration with 200 jobs at risk (31 July 2026)
19. TheBusinessDesk — Engineering supplier collapses with £43.7m black hole after entering administration (July 2026)
20. Construction News — 2027 construction recovery at risk from shocks (CPA Summer Forecast) (27 July 2026)
21. FCA — Motor finance scheme partially suspended (2 July 2026)
22. Mortgage Solutions — Metro Bank muses Aldermore merger — reports (23 July 2026)
23. Trading Economics — UK 10-year government bond yield (22–24 July 2026)
24. HSBC — Results and announcements calendar (interims 4 August 2026)
25. The Intermediary — Close Brothers Property Finance agrees £20m revolving credit facility to support 52 new homes (27 July 2026)
26. The Intermediary — United Trust Bank funds £19m Birkdale residential development for Oakwood Group (30 July 2026)
27. Alternative Credit Investor — Leumi ABL structures £20m revolving funding facility for Compass Business Finance (29 July 2026)
28. Alternative Credit Investor — Triple Point provides Plend with credit facility of up to £50m (28 July 2026)
29. Kalkine Media — Mercia Asset Management secures £38 million in Metro Bank financing (23 July 2026)
30. TheBusinessDesk — Mercia targets up to £500m for UK real estate development fund (21 July 2026)
31. Property118 — Buy-to-let lenders cut rates and one adds bridging (ModaMortgages fee-free range) (29 July 2026)
32. LBN Daily — River Capital hits £10m loan fund milestone (23 July 2026)
33. TheBusinessDesk — Together completes a second securitisation of the year valued at £563m (16 July 2026)
34. Bibby Financial Services — Bibby Financial Services targets SME growth with support from HSBC UK (15 July 2026)
35. Mortgage Solutions — Ultimate Finance’s loan book reaches record £430m (14 July 2026)
36. Mortgage Soup — LendInvest posts record £1.44bn lending year (15 July 2026)
37. Mortgage Solutions — Market Harborough BS eyes growth with £120m Gen H portfolio acquisition (15 July 2026)
38. Bridging Loan Directory — Pivot appoints finance director and promotes three senior team members (28 July 2026)
39. Credit Connect — Time Finance appoints relationship manager (28 July 2026)
40. Alternative Credit Investor — BCLP hires structured finance partner in London (27 July 2026)
41. Credit Connect — FOS confirms permanent chief executive and chief ombudsman (21 July 2026)
42. OakNorth — Careers: Director, Credit — Trading Businesses (London) and Associate Director, Credit — Trading Business (live 1 August 2026)
43. NACFB — Commercial Lender Awards 2026 open for submissions (29 July 2026)
44. FLA — Outdated lending rules are holding back UK investment, new Chancellor told (21 July 2026)
45. Builders Merchants Journal — BMJ Industry Awards 2026 finalist listing revealed (1 August 2026)
46. Builders Merchants Journal — Independents top BMF engagement award shortlist (29 July 2026)
47. Builders’ Merchants News — Construction sector confidence rose in July (July 2026)
48. Construction Enquirer — London house building stirs as national starts slide again (28 July 2026)
49. Construction Enquirer — Brick sales slide at Forterra set to continue (28 July 2026)
50. Atradius — Creditors face new risks as EU drives insolvency harmonisation (28 July 2026)
51. Allianz Trade — UK newsroom: insolvency outlook (standing view, April 2026)
52. Credit Connect — Fourth director disqualified for role in £13.9m Barclays scam (28 July 2026)
53. Credit Connect — Fraudster secured Covid loan support for company which never traded (30 July 2026)
54. Metro Bank — Investor relations: H1 2026 results, 4 August (4 August 2026)
55. Shawbrook — Investor relations: financial calendar (interims 5 August 2026)
56. GlobeNewswire — Finning to report Q2 2026 results on August 5 (24 July 2026)
57. Secure Trust Bank — Notice of interim results (RNS) (22 July 2026)
58. Farrer & Co — The Government’s late payment reforms: a practical guide for businesses (Commercial Payments Bill status, July 2026)