Business Bank proposals need radical push in 2013 and beyond

20th December 2012

Commenting on Vince Cable's statement to Parliament regarding progress on the creation of a business bank, John Longworth, Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce, said: -We recognise that the road to a British Business Bank is a difficult one to travel.

Yet business is clear that the new institution must develop into a major source of both patient growth capital and risk capital similar to that seen in countries as diverse as Canada, South Korea, Germany and Brazil if it is to succeed where decades of interventions have failed. -Wholesale funding, routed through existing and challenger banks, is certainly part of the solution in the short term. -Yet our fastest-growing companies need patient capital and risk capital to meet their financing needs, and may need a direct route into the business bank. The bank itself will also need much larger amounts of capital over the longer term if it is to have the radical impact both we and ministers want to see. -In the new year, we will press both ministers and Sir Peter Burt's advisory panel to ensure that the business bank is truly transformative. We have one opportunity to radically change Britain's business finance system, and we must get it right.