Banks miss lending targets
New statistics reporting on business lending by the Merlin group of banks have been called "encouraging" within the industry but "condemned as a farce" from without.
The British Bankers' Association (BBA) has distributed the figures, which show £47.3 billion in business lending during the first quarter of the year from the banks covered by the Merlin agreement.
Barclays, RBS, Santander, Lloyds Banking Group and HSBC entered into this accord with the Bank of England, pledging to meet a certain level of lending to UK businesses.
In its report, the BBA calls the new figures "encouraging", but a report in the Daily Mail exposes some of the finer details of what was promised and what was achieved.
For example, the pledged support for small to medium-sized businesses was £19 billion under the Merlin promise.
In reality, these companies received £16.8 billion - a deficit of £25 million every day, weekends included, over the course of the quarter.
In contrast Premier are experiencing record lending levels as SME's turn to independent sources to secure asset and project finance including refinancing owned assets to provide valuable working capital.
Please contact us if you require further information. May 2010