The past 12 months saw the introduction of no fewer than five separate government schemes to boost the supply of credit to businesses, none more short-lived than the National Loans Guarantee Scheme, which was approved in March only to be dropped in August.

The initiative the NLGS was phased out in favour of, the Funding for Lending scheme, is not expected to have any noticeable impact before Q2 next year, although it got off to a bad start when, in its first quarter, the six banks that drew money from the scheme actually reduced net lending by £1bn.

The jury also remains out on the other three initiatives, the GrowthAccelerator, Business Finance Partnerships and the BIS bank, although it is clear from their launch that the government is convinced of the need to improve the flow of finance to SMEs and one can only hope that sooner (rather than later) one of its seeming shots in the dark will hit the mark.

In the private sector, the big news was the withdrawal of ING Lease from UK asset finance, which was expected to be a major blow for digital and CTP finance.