With finance from banks and traditional sources still difficult to obtain, the Bank of England has announced an extension of the current Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS) that will now run for a further year to January 2015.

Banks, building societies and now other financial institutions, such as Invoice discounting specialists, will receive funds from the Bank of England Central purse at low interest rates which they must pass on to business and consumers looking for mortgage funding.

Bank lending has been consistently lower than expected as they struggle to rebuild their balance sheets, the figure for business lending for the three months to the end of February down by nearly £5 billion.