Lloyds bank admits it will miss government lending targets
Lloyds bank has today confirmed it will miss an £11 billion business lending target set by the UK government earlier this year. The legally binding agreement was part of the government's bailout plan for Lloyds bank and it had been hoped that the additional lending capital would assist small to medium sized businesses in the UK and speed up the recovery process in the overall UK economy. However, the company has admitted it will miss the target by a significant amount and indeed lending is contracting rather than growing at the moment.
This puts the UK government in a very difficult position because ultimately the hundreds of billions of pounds injected into the UK banking sector was done so on condition that help and assistance would be made available to UK businesses. If the banks are not honouring their legally binding agreement with the government, with the Royal Bank of Scotland also confessing it will miss its own £16 billion target, how have UK businesses and UK taxpayers actually benefited from the massive taxpayer funded bailout of the sector?
The admission that targets will be missed has also been noted by various small-company associations and more pressure will be placed on the UK banking system and the UK government in the days and weeks ahead.
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