And How is Your Bank Treating You These Days?

The Forum of Private Business is hosting a questionnaire on behalf of the Office of Fair Trading in an effort to find out whether SMEs are being denied credit without a valid reason - or are, in the alternative, being offered credit at extortionate rates - by banks and other financial institutions that seem to have become increasingly 'risk averse'.

The survey covers a range of banking issues, takes only a few moments to complete, and is completely confidential. It is open to all SMEs, and can be accessed at www.bit.ly/cPVVcf

The Forum hopes that as many SMEs as possible will take part in this survey - and, indeed, it would to be advantageous to business generally if there were a very large response to it.

Lending fell again in July. Banks and their industry groups are claiming that lending is down because demand is down, and claim that they are doing everything they possibly can to increase the flow of finance to business. This survey is part of an ongoing process to discover whether that is - or is not - the case.

We have most of us, I think, had cause to complain at one time or another about the abitrary - and sometimes incomprehensible - behaviour of the financial institutions that are an unavoidable part of being in business, but we have never before had the opportunity to actually make a complaint.

Don't waste this chance! The next one could be a long time coming.