Bankers address lending problems

Monday, 9 August 2010 12:00 AM

By politics.co.uk staff

Britain's high street bank bosses have outlined their plans to tackle limited lending to businesses in a letter to chancellor George Osborne.

Stephen Green, chairman of the British Bankers' Association, told Mr Osborne the taskforce would report by early October and cover market analysis, securitisation and funding, business finance and trade finance.

Proposals to establish the taskforce, which also includes government officials, were originally included in the green paper 'Financing a private sector recovery'.

The coalition agreement included a commitment to impose net lending targets on banks. Last week a Treasury spokesperson told politics.co.uk bank lending was being monitored but that "no decision to act" had been taken.

"We, like you, believe that there is a real need to make sure that viable businesses are able to obtain the finance they need to support the recovery of the UK economy," Mr Green wrote.

"A variety of factors have an impact on this and we recognise the collective role we have to play."

He said the group would investigate the possibility of a government-sponsored equity fund for small and medium sized enterprises.

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• banking crisis
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• economy
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• economy and finance