Lending to business

This note sets out statistics available on lending to business and discusses recent trends in the data. Actual outstanding lending has been falling since late 2008. The cost of credit has stabilised for businesses in general, although it has increased for small businesses. Reported demand for credit from small businesses has been volatile during 2010 and 2011. The 2011 Project Merlin commitments on making lending facilities available were met for businesses overall, but not for SMEs.