Banks claim SME lending is on the up
The major banks insisted they were all open for business when they were quizzed at the first meeting of the new House of Commons West Midlands Select Committee.
Four Labour MPs (the committee is boycotted by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats) questioned senior Midlands bankers as to their approach to SMEs during this recession.
The following is a snapshot of the comments made at this session, provided by the West Midlands Business Council:
- HSBC are working with Business Links, the publicly funded business support service, so that Business Links advisers know about the Enterprise Finance Guarantee scheme. This scheme is a kind of Government guarantee for small business loans from the banks
- Nat West and Business Links have exchanged staff for short periods of secondments
- HSBC stated GDP will be down four per cent by the end of the year and that the West Midlands region is worse off in this recession than the South East.
- Lloyds TSB claimed it was more difficult to put money into Community Development Finance Initiatives (CDFIs) – basically small community loan schemes for SMEs – as business demand is mainly in overdrafts rather than loans
- Barclays claims it gives out SME loans – on average – every 70 seconds
- Nat West and Barclays said there had been a 20 per cent increase in lending to SMEs
- Lloyds TSB gave a commitment that fees on facilities will not increase for the next six months
- Nat West gave a commitment to Labour MP, Adrian Bailey, that if the Committee sent them examples they would investigate any complaints of loans and overdraft requests that customers believe have been unfairly turned down
If members have comments on these and experiences they would like to be raised with the banks, please contact Nigel Hastilow, Regional Director, on 07876 035940 or by email: Nigel.Hastilow@icaew.com
