UK’s APS plan not a solution, say voters

Attempts to kickstart the UK’s lending market with the government’s £50bn Asset Purchase Scheme (APS), through which it may buy up portions of syndicated loans, are already being shrugged off by bankers before details of the plan are even finalised. Bankers have argued in turn that the buying criteria being mooted is too narrow, the amounts too small, and that the plan fails to address more pressing issues, such as the way Basle II is punishing banks. But an overwhelming 62% of voters in our weekly online poll dismissed the plan offhand, saying that including syndicated loans in the APS would help solve nothing at all.