Banks to boost lending to small businesses - report

A man walks out of an RBS building, in the City of London September 2, 2010.

LONDON (Reuters) - Top banks will propose setting up a growth capital fund to help boost lending to small businesses, according to a Sky News blog on Monday.

A taskforce set up in July by representatives of six major lenders will recommend setting up the fund into which each bank is likely to inject "tens of millions of pounds," Sky business editor Mark Kleinman wrote in his blog.

The venture, subject to formal approval from the banks' boards and the Financial Services Authority, is designed to provide growth equity for smaller British companies, Kleinman said.

The proposals are due to be presented to Chancellor George Osborne and Business Secretary Vince Cable later this week, the British Bankers' Association (BBA) said in an emailed statement on Monday, in response to Sky's report.

The BBA said the report would be "comprehensive and will contain important and wide-ranging recommendations."

It said it would not comment on specifics until after the group's discussions with the government ministers.

Earlier on Monday Osborne said he would not allow banks to pay huge bonuses if they do not lend to small businesses.

"We will not allow money to flow unimpeded out of those banks into huge bonuses if that means money is not also flowing out in credit to the small businesses who did nothing to cause this crash and suffered the most in it," Osborne said in a speech to the Conservative party's annual conference.

(Reporting by Karolina Tagaris; Editing by Richard Chang)