Lloyds fails to hit lending target for region's firms

The bank pledged to lend half a billion pounds to the region's mid-corporate market in 2009 but Shaun Ellenthorpe, head of large corporate business in North and West Yorkshire, admitted to the Yorkshire Post that the bank only achieved half of that figure.

Mr Ellenthorpe insisted that the bank is "open for business" but added that it could only lend money to companies under the right circumstances.

"To provide funding we need enough of the right type of businesses who want to borrow money," he said.

"We haven't fulfilled our lending obligations. In some ways we were too good in helping businesses become efficient and now they don't want us because they are happy being leaner at the moment. There is a reluctance for businesses to throw themselves back into the market place as they were."

He added: "We are very clear about the businesses we want to talk to going forward. We are absolutely open for business and if a company wants to create a dialogue we are only too happy to sit down and talk to them about it."

Last month, Lloyds Banking Group announced it lost 24bn on bad loans in 2009, forcing the bank heavily into the red.

It posted an operating loss of 6.3bn, less than the 6.7bn loss the group made in 2008, but it made a pre-tax profit of 1bn.

The bank is now 41 per cent owned by the state, down from 43 per cent after it raised 22.5bn of capital at the end of last year.

Mr Ellenthorpe predicted that corporate activity levels by the end of the year would be much higher than in 2009 as companies build up cash on their balance sheets.

He said: "People are telling me that corporate finance is closed but our acquisition and finance teams are busy working on several new deals so it has opened up again. There will be more acquisitions in 2010."

He also said there are fewer businesses moving into an area called "business support", which deals with customers whose companies are under significant stress.

"We haven't had any transfers to business support in the last six months and there are no more than 12 businesses there at the moment," he said.