SMEs get more bank finance
Article Date: Apr 21 2006Banks dished out £33 billion in loans to growth businesses last year, an 11 per cent increase on 2004, according to statistics released by the British Banking Association (BBA).
The BBA's monitoring of the main banks servicing the SME market showed:
- Term lending had risen by 11 per cent over the year, to £33.3 billion. A year earlier, annual growth was running at around 19 per cent.
- Overdraft lending rose by ten per cent to £8.8 billon. The annual growth rate was virtually unchanged from a year earlier.
- Deposits had increased by six per cent over the year, to £41.3 billon.
- During 2005, some 515,000 small businesses established first banking relationships.
- 41 per cent of small businesses now use online banking
‘Half a million new banking relationships during last year demonstrate the banks’ commitment to providing services and appropriate finance for small businesses,’ comments BBA deputy chief executive Sally Scutt. ‘Though annual growth in structured term lending decelerated during 2005, probably reflecting last year's challenging business environment, deposit growth held up, so that at the year-end, the net position of the small business sector was in balance.’
The banks contributing to this survey are Abbey, Alliance & Leicester Commercial Bank, Bank of Scotland, Barclays, Clydesdale (including Yorkshire Bank), HSBC, LloydsTSB, Royal Bank of Scotland (including NatWest) and The Co operative Bank.
For more information, go to www.bba.org.uk
