Incentivising Lending to SMEs with the Funding for Lending Scheme

Abstract

JT03406912Complete document available on OLIS in its original format This document and any map included herein are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area. ECO/WKP(2016)89 Unclassified English -Or. English ECO/WKP(2016)89 2 OECD Working Papers should not be reported as representing the official views of the OECD or of its member countries. The opinions expressed and arguments employed are those of the author.Working Papers describe preliminary results or research in progress by the author(s) and are published to stimulate discussion on a broad range of issues on which the OECD works.Comments on Working Papers are welcomed, and may be sent to OECD Economics Department, 2 rue André Pascal, 75775 Paris Cedex 16, France, or by e-mail to eco.contact@oecd.org.All Economics Department Working Papers are available at www.oecd.org/eco/workingpapers This document and any map included herein are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area.The statistical data for Israel are supplied by and under the responsibility of the relevant Israeli authorities. The use of such data by the OECD is without prejudice to the status of the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and Israeli settlements in the West Bank under the terms of international law.Latvia was not an OECD member at the time of preparation of this publication. Accordingly, Latvia does not appear in the list of OECD members and is not included in the zone aggregates. © OECD (2016)You can copy, download or print OECD content for your own use, and you can include excerpts from OECD publications, databases and multimedia products in your own documents, presentations, blogs, websites and teaching materials, provided that suitable acknowledgment of OECD as source and copyright owner is given. All requests for commercial use and translation rights should be submitted to rights@oecd.org ECO/WKP(2016) This study explores the effectiveness of the incentive mechanisms embedded within the UK's Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS) for banks' to expand their supply of lending to medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The FLS was announced by the Bank of England and HM Treasury in June 2012, with the aim of improving the supply of credit to the UK real economy. Despite the prevailing low level of risk-free interest rates, UK banks' funding costs were elevated at the time of the Scheme's introduction, and the intention was to provide lenders with a stable source of lower-cost funding to support credit provision to the real economy. The Scheme's design built in direct incentives for banks to support lending to the real economy, by linking both the price and quantity of funding available through the Scheme to their lending performance. This paper looks for evidence of the effectiveness of these incentives, exploiting a modification of ...