LONDON -(Dow Jones)- U.K. Business Secretary Peter Mandelson said Wednesday that the government is putting intense pressure on banks to get lending moving again to businesses and individuals, warning that if that doesn't happen, there will be severe economic consequences.
"We've put intense pressure on the banks to make sure that finance for small firms doesn't dry up, or that it isn't being re-priced unfairly," Mandelson said in a text of a speech to be delivered to the Institute for Directors in London.
Mandelson has held a series of meetings with banks and other lenders in recent weeks in a bid to persuade them to continue lending. On Wednesday, he met with credit-card companies to look at the lending practices in that industry and how they are dealing with borrowers to handle debt.
Mandelson reiterated that he was working with banks on a best code of lending practices, which he said must lay down the "clear expectation that viable small firms must not be put at risk for lack of credit."
There were reports Wednesday that Mandelson's department was considering legal ways of forcing banks to increase lending. Earlier Wednesday, responding to a question about those reports, a spokesman for Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the government "is ruling nothing out."
Mandelson's comments come ahead of a meeting Thursday with representatives from the auto sector.
The prime minister's spokesman said Wednesday that one item on the agenda will be what type of "appropriate support" the government can offer manufacturers and their suppliers.
-By Laurence Norman, Dow Jones Newswires; 44-207-842-9270; Laurence.Norman@DowJones.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 26, 2008 15:35 ET (20:35 GMT)

Publié le 26 novembre 2008 Copyright © 2008 Dowjones