UK business lending likely to shrink until 2019: EY

London

BUSINESS loans in the UK will shrink to the lowest in more than a decade in the next couple of years as weaker economic prospects in the aftermath of the vote to leave the European Union damp demand, according to the EY ITEM Club.

Total lending to companies will contract 1.8 per cent next year and another one per cent in 2018 before finally recovering the following year, the organisation said in a report released on Monday. By then, the total stock of business loans will have dropped to £376 billion (S$664 billion), the lowest since 2005, EY said.