By Mark Kleinman, City Editor
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is poised to reignite the bitter political debate about business lending by telling thousands of its corporate customers: "come and get our money".
Sky News has learnt that in recent weeks the state-backed lender has begun writing to approximately 100,000 small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) to inform them that it would be willing to substantially increase the sums it lends to them.
The initiative follows a successful pilot programme by RBS and its NatWest subsidiary, and is likely to be extended to a much larger number of its 1.2m UK-based SME customers.
The bank is expected to announce details of the campaign, which is the most aggressive since RBS was rescued by taxpayers in 2008, later this week.
It involves offering new working capital facilities or term loans, as well as providing 12-month capital repayment holidays or reduced monthly repayments in some cases.
The lending appetite project is understood to be the brainchild of Chris Sullivan, RBS's corporate banking chief, who is seen in the City as one of a small number of credible internal candidates to succeed Stephen Hester as the group's chief executive.
It comes as industry-wide figures showed a further contraction in lending to non-financial businesses.
Data released by the British Bankers' Association on Tuesday revealed a £1.7bn fall in May, which the trade body said was attributable to businesses relying on cash and other forms of funding rather than bank loans.
RBS's move to reach out to business customers also comes amid growing uncertainty about its future structure, with George Osborne, the Chancellor, bowing to calls to explore a break-up of the group.
In his speech at Mansion House last week, Mr Osborne said a review of whether to split RBS into separate 'good' and 'bad' banks was partly driven by a desire to see it lend more to the real economy.
"We will establish a 'bad' bank if it meets our three objectives: if it supports the British economy; if it's in the interests of taxpayers; and if it accelerates the return to private ownership," he said.
Senior RBS sources said the bank had trialled the lending appetite outreach programme with 20,000 SME customers, resulting in an additional £1.7bn of credit being extended.
To avoid possible accusations that it is lending recklessly, RBS is only writing to customers with a satisfactory repayment history.
In an interview with The Sunday Times last month, Mr Hester said RBS was "desperate" to lend as much as £20bn of corporate deposits but said customers' borrowing appetite was being constrained by a lack of confidence in the British economy.
Mr Hester's departure from the bank was effectively orchestrated by the Chancellor, and his successor will face intense pressure to grow its SME lending as the Government tries to engineer a faster economic recovery.
RBS is Britain's biggest lender to businesses, extending £58bn of new loans to corporate customers in its home market last year, more than half of which were to SMEs.
The debate about the bank's future and its willingness to lend has drawn in other Cabinet ministers. Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, said last week that he wanted formal lending targets to be reintroduced at RBS and for the pay of its next chief executive to be more closely linked to business lending levels.
Rows over business lending have blighted the banking sector since the financial crisis, with a string of government measures failing to trigger a sustained upturn in the supply of credit to British companies.
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