SMEs urged to tell of banking experiences

26/08/2010

The Forum of Private Business (FPB) is calling for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to tell about their banking experiences in order to establish how SME owners are being treated by the major
lenders.

It is hoped SMEs will share their experiences online to help the Office of Fair Trading find out about banking after figures from the British Bankers' Association revealed lending to SMEs dropped again last month.

The FPB's research manager, Thomas Parry, said: "Clearly, the issue of the way banks treat small firms has received an enormous amount of attention recently and sparked a lot of debate.

"One the one hand, groups like the forum have been arguing that viable smaller firms are being unjustifiably denied credit, or offered it at an extortionate cost, by risk-averse banks which often don't understand their needs."

Recently, it was suggested that if the government were to introduce targets for lending to SMEs it would not be helpful.

Chris Gorman, spokesperson for the FPB, was speaking as the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales revealed SMEs are finding it hard to borrow from banks due to them using restrictive criteria.

Posted by Nicola Richards