LONDON (Reuters UK) - A Bank of England scheme launched three months ago to lend short-term funds to non-investment grade companies has had no takers so far, despite concerns such companies are still finding it hard to access funds.
The central bank said on Monday that its Secured Commercial Paper Facility remained unused.
The scheme aims to channel money to firms by buying asset-backed commercial paper secured on companies' assets such as trade receivables and credit card debt.
"There were no programmes that were immediately eligible for the SCP facility and consequently no purchases have been made so far," the Bank said in a quarterly update on Monday on its asset purchase facility.
However, the central bank added that it had always envisaged the scheme would take "a number of months" to get off the ground because of the time needed to create programmes that would be eligible for the facility.
The Bank is close to completing its main 175 billion pound quantitative easing programme and will decide in early November whether the economy remains weak enough to warrant an expansion.
In its review of the past three months, the Bank notes that liquidity in the sterling corporate bond markets had improved and credit spreads had narrowed.
However, industry surveys and the central bank's own "Trends in Lending" report suggest that smaller companies, which do not have credit ratings or the ability to access capital markets, are still finding it hard to borrow.
(Reporting by Christina Fincher; editing by Patrick Graham)
