Businesses Still Not Getting The Loans They Need
We have reported on several occasions over the course of the past few months about how businesses are finding it increasingly difficult to obtain the right business loan they require in order to develop their business, or in some cases just to keep their company afloat.
Earlier this year, the Treasury and Bank of England started to try and help banks to be able to start offering loans once again through the quantitative easing programme, by pumping billions of pounds worth of funding into the financial system. So far, the quantitative easing programme has introduced a staggering £200 billion into the banking sector, but this seems to have made little difference to banks’ ability to offer loans to businesses.
The British Chamber of Commerce (BCC) has reported this week, that in its latest survey amongst companies, 33 per cent of those interviewed said that they had found it more difficult to obtain a business loan than it was three months ago, despite the additional government funding. A similar survey conducted in June this year showed that only a fifth of businesses claimed that things had got worse. Similarly, those businesses which have reported an improvement in loan availability have fallen from 6 per cent in June, to just 3 per cent in the latest survey.
With many businesses now struggling to keep going and placing a ban on pay rises, overtime and bonuses for their employees and in a large number of cases, making redundancies, many industry experts are of the opinion that the quantitative easing programme is not working in the way in which it was intended and in the majority of cases, banks are using the additional funding to restore their own balance sheets and pay bonuses again, rather than offer loans to those who need them the most.
