Reuters: Small Business News: RBS commissions review of small business lending

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RBS commissions review of small business lending Jul 2nd 2013, 23:02 Tweet Share this Email Print Related News UK economy shows signs of life as Carney starts at Bank of England Mon, Jul 1 2013 HIGHLIGHTS-Bank of England policymakers before Treasury Committee Tue, Jun 25 2013 UK's new watchdog tells banks to raise another $20 billion Thu, Jun 20 2013 UPDATE 2-Britain to look at RBS split, start Lloyds sale soon Wed, Jun 19 2013 UK's Co-op Bank agrees to £1.5 billion 'bail-in' rescue plan Mon, Jun 17 2013 Analysis & Opinion From Aspen: America's opportunity gap – and why it's bad for lawyers Review: Tales from China’s wild lending frontier Pedestrians walk past a Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) branch in the City of London March 6, 2013. Credit: Reuters/Toby Melville By Matt Scuffham LONDON | Tue Jul 2, 2013 7:02pm EDT LONDON (Reuters) - Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) (RBS.L) has commissioned a review of its lending to small businesses, responding to concerns of a shortage of finance in a sector seen as vital to Britain's economic revival. The government-controlled bank, Britain's biggest lender to small businesses, said it had appointed former Bank of England deputy governor Andrew Large and management consultants Oliver Wyman to conduct the review. The British government is concerned that poor access to finance among smaller firms may thwart a sustainable recovery from the country's worst slump in decades. It has launched schemes such as Funding for Lending, giving banks cheap funding to encourage them to lend to households and businesses, but this has failed to stimulate lending and recent data showed business lending down on last year. RBS said its review would focus on what steps RBS and its NatWest division can take to support small businesses and Britain's economic recovery while maintaining sound practices. "Demand for lending remains a challenge, but we want to do more than just wait for demand to materialize," said Chris Sullivan, RBS's head of UK corporate banking. "We want to play our part in securing the recovery." RBS is under extra under pressure to increase lending because the government controls 81 percent of the bank after pumping in 45.5 billion pounds ($69 billion) to keep it afloat during the 2008 financial crisis. Stephen Hester, who was ousted as RBS chief executive last month, said in May the bank had 20 billion pounds of spare cash it was desperate to lend, but could not find takers because businesses lacked confidence in the British economy. ($1 = 0.6592 British pounds) (Editing by David Holmes) Tweet this Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/ Comments (0) Be the first to comment on reuters.com. Add yours using the box above.

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