BoE and Treasury extend Funding for Lending scheme

The Bank of England (BoE) and HM Treasury have announced a one-year extension to the Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS), with small to medium-sized businesses to continue to be the primary beneficiaries.

The extension will provide lenders with continued certainty over the availability of cheap funding to support lending to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) during 2015, even in the event of stress in bank funding markets, the government said. The FLS, launched in 2012, was initially designed to improve credit conditions for households before incentives were re-focussed towards SMEs a year ago. The drawdown window for the FLS extension will now remain open until 29 January 2016. Current participants in the FLS extension will remain part of the scheme unless they choose to opt ou...