Britain’s major banks are making it tougher for consumers to get unsecured credit, which may slow the pace of lending that the Bank of England has identified as a risk to financial stability.
In its Credit Conditions survey, the BOE said its measure of the availability of unsecured credit fell to minus 6.6 in the first quarter, to first time it dropped below zero since 2012. The measure for the next three months declined to a level that would represent the tightest availability since just after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.
