Lending by banks continues to decline

CENTRAL Bank credit figures show bank lending continuing to decline across most sectors of the economy in February.

The figures show that the pace of decline in lending to businesses has been accelerating, and is now shrinking at an annual rate of 3.7%, after falling 3% in January.

Funding to industry has been highly controversial since the credit crunch began and Bank of Ireland said it would raise lending to the SME sector to €3bn this year from €2.3bn last year at the prompting of the finance minister, in his Dáil address on Tuesday.