FPB welcomes Shawbrook's plans

Date: 21st October 2011

Recent plans to make £250 million available to the country's smaller businesses have been welcomed by one leading industry body.

The Forum of Private Business (FPB) said the announcement from Shawbrook bank, which opened earlier this week, should be seen as a positive development.

Shawbrook's businesses model is centred on making funds available to businesses that struggle to obtain finance from mainstream banks.

The FPB said the bank represents a new source of finance for small firms, but said more still needs to be done.

Jane Bennett, the forum's head of campaigns, said: "While a target of lending £250 million per year is not huge, the funding that will be available via the new bank should not be dismissed out of hand.

"However, there is a great deal of work still to be done to improve competition in order address the over-centralised, tick-box nature of today's banking system, and to restore local decision-making powers to branch managers who truly know the businesses in their areas."

Posted by Emily Smith