Bank lending and the economy

Commercial loans and overdrafts and other forms of credit for businesses are hugely important to sustain businesses fighting a recession or those in better shape and looking to expand. It is a truism that the UK economy will not engineer a durable recovery unless the international financial and economic backdrop improves. Increasing the availability of bank lending especially to small and medium-sized enterprises is another essential building block to an upturn in output and jobs.

In this sense the news that Barclays has lent £17 billion to UK households and business in the first half of 2009 - already outstripping the £11 billion target it set for the whole of 2009 - is welcome. But that figure hides the actual cost of servicing loans. Even if a business can maintain an overdraft facility or gain access to fresh credit, it is likely to be paying more for the privilege. The cost of debt can be as important as the supply. Here is a good video on Rhino Rugby a manufacturer of equipment for the rugby industry.

Given that thousands upon thousands of smaller businesses use credit cards as a way of tiding them over from month to month (something the business studies textbooks and exam boards seem strangely reluctant to recognise despite overwhelming evidence), it will come as little comfort to entrepreneurs to be paying upwards of 40 times base rate (policy rate) for their loans.