Business start-ups to get extra help

Date: 10th November 2009

A major new support programme for smaller UK firms has been unveiled by the part-nationalised Lloyds Banking Group.

The 2012 Charter aims to provide bank funding for 300,000 business start-ups over the next three years and includes details of measures aimed at increasing lending flows to small businesses in general.

Around 200 seminars will be run for every year until 2012 by the bank, giving advice to entrepreneurs on various issues related to starting a business.

The bank also promised to "meet every reasonable request" from business customers for credit, as well as keeping to pre-set overdraft agreements for existing customers.

John Maltby, a managing director at Lloyds Banking Group, said: "Just as businesses needed support during the depths of the downturn, it is critical that we give them the right guidance and help them grow as the momentum of recovery starts to build.

"There is no doubt that business optimism is the foundation of any economic upturn and through the pledges we have set out today, to encourage enterprise, boost access to finance and provide clearer and fairer pricing, we hope to give businesses across the country the confidence they need to grow and lead the UK out of recession."

The Lloyds Banking Group is made up of HBOS and Lloyds TSB and is 43 per cent owned by the government following last year's bank bailouts.

It is to undergo a radical restructuring over the years to come, selling hundreds of individual branches to the private sector.

Posted by Emma Clarke