Lloyds beats lending targets
Part-nationalised bank Lloyds Banking Group has met its targets for lending to businesses and for mortgages, it has announced.
The high street lender extended £11.7bn in lending to small and mid-sized businesses and £37bn to larger companies in the year to February 2011, beating its annual target by £4.7bn.
It also provided £23.5bn in gross mortgage lending to more than 50,000 people, excluding re-mortgages, beating its commitment of £23bn.
“Through the Business Finance Taskforce, we are delivering 18 measures, focused on improving access to finance, and we’ve also agreed collectively to make up to £190bn of gross new lending available to businesses, subject to demand, alongside four other major banks,” it said.
Lloyds said it approved eight out of ten requests for lending by businesses and eight out of ten mortgage applications.
It had also kept its lending margin for businesses at 2.6 per cent over the Bank of England’s base rate, which it said was almost identical to the margin charged in 2007.
It also said it was responsible for 30 per cent of all loans offered through the government’s Enterprise Finance Guarantee Scheme.
Lloyds has extended 4,000 loans, worth £300m to date, it said.