Alliance sees loans slowdown

Alliance & Leicester today revealed a sharp slowdown in unsecured lending after tightening its criteria for loans in a slower UK market.

The banking group said unsecured personal loan advances were £565m (€825m) in the first quarter of 2006, compared with £890m (€1.3bn) for the same period a year earlier. It added that the proportion of balances in arrears at the end of May stood at 5.7%, against 5.1% at the end of last year.