Cable Launches Business Finance Taskforce

Business Secretary Vince Cable has set up an industry-led taskforce to look at new ways for businesses to raise finance outside the traditional offerings from banks.

The taskforce will be led by Tim Breedon, Legal and General chief executive and current chairman of the Association of British Insurers, and will examine challenges facing businesses in diversifying their finance.

The focus will be on debt and credit products, looking at a range of finance choices, from corporate bonds to ‘crowd-funding’, and identifying the structural and behavourial barriers to raising non-bank finance.

Cable said: ‘Businesses across the UK are still in many cases unhappy with the way they have been treated by banks. We have secured a rise in new lending from the biggest banks this year and credit easing is designed to provide another immediate boost. But I want to see as much competition in the market as possible and for businesses to have access to a wide range of finance sources.’

Cable said the taskforce would ‘investigate and dismantle’ barriers to adopting innovations such as business selling bonds directly to their customers, and peer-to-peer lending. It will report to government ahead of the 2012 Budget statement.