The BBA's monitoring of the main banks servicing the SME market provides the following picture of support for small businesses in the UK. Although clubs, charities and societies operate small business accounts with banks, their activities are not commercial in nature and are therefore not covered by these data. Main features over the twelve months to the end of December 2005 were:

• Term lending had risen by 11% over the year, to £33.3bn. A year earlier, annual growth was running at around 19%.
• Overdraft lending had risen by 10% over the year, to £8.8bn. The annual growth rate was virtually unchanged from a year earlier.
• Deposits had risen by 6% over the year, to £41.3bn.
• During 2005, some 515,000 small businesses established first banking relationships.
• 41% of small businesses now use online banking.

Commenting on the latest BBA figures, BBA deputy chief executive Sally Scutt said:

"Half a million new banking relationships during last year demonstrate the banks commitment to providing services and appropriate finance for small businesses. Though annual growth in structured term lending decelerated during 2005, probably reflecting last year's challenging business environment, deposit growth held up, so that at the year-end, the net position of the small business sector was in balance."