BBA: Bank lending is not irresponsible

The British Bankers' Association (BBA) has moved to diffuse some of the speculation surround UK banks' lending policies by saying that standards within the sector are higher than those found elsewhere.

Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live's Wake Up To Money programme, BBA chief executive Angela Knight noted that a Banking Code was already in place to discourage such practices from taking place.

While admitting that irresponsible lending was a problem, Ms Knight suggested that other credit providers were perhaps more to blame than the banking industry.

"Don't forget that when it comes to lending and borrowing something like 40 per cent of all loans don't come from the banking industry at all. It's actually very easy to borrow money from a wide range of people, organisations and so on," the chief executive told the programme.

"What we've recently done is had an independent review to look at that Banking Code and they've come up with a lot of suggestions which we've just got and are having a look at at the moment," she added.

Abbey recently came under criticism for launching a 125 per cent mortgage deal just days after a series of high-risk lending offers had culminated in the run on Northern Rock.

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