Bank of Scotland set to expand SME team

The Bank of Scotland, now part of HBOS, has announced the recruitment of two new members to the banks commercial team. The instructions for the new members are to increase and enhance the company's exposure to the small and medium enterprise market in Scotland which has recently been starved of finance causing many potentially "good" companies to fall by the wayside.

This is the first time we have seen one of the major banking institutions in the UK specifically mention the small and medium enterprise market. This is an area of the financial industry which has effectively been cut adrift in the short to medium term with many banks seeing increased risks and lower returns. Despite the fact that the UK government has undergone a number of initiatives to try and encourage further lending from the banking community to small and medium-sized businesses, so far these have failed miserably.

Over the last few months we have seen a number of prominent business people in the UK suggesting that unless finance is forthcoming in the short to medium term then many potential "business successes" of the future may well look overseas for assistance. There is a real danger that the UK could effectively miss out on the next generation of business entrepreneurs.