Lending up £500m under BoE scheme
The Bank of England's flagship Funding for Lending scheme has seen less than £500m injected into small businesses and households, new figures show.
The scheme, which opened at the start of August, offers banks cheap finance if they in turn lend on to households and businesses.
Banks drew down £4.36bn from the scheme in the third quarter, but net lending increased by just £496m.
The BoE's executive director for markets, Paul Fisher, said he remained confident Fundling for Lending would help with the supply of credit.
"Since the scheme was announced we have seen widespread falls in funding costs across different sources and an equally wide variety of lending rate reductions," he said.
"But it is too early to use these data as a reliable indication of the impact of the FLS on lending volumes."