LONDON, Sept 10 (Reuters) - State-backed lender NatWest
Group tapped 5 billion pounds ($6.47 billion) from a
Bank of England fund set up to help struggling small businesses
in the pandemic, BoE data on Thursday showed.
NatWest has been the biggest user of the so-called 'TFSME'
scheme so far, which has extended 14.3 billion pounds of cheap
funding to lenders near the rock bottom BoE interest rate of
0.1%.
Nationwide Building Society drew down the second largest
amount, at 3.2 billion pounds, followed by Santander's UK unit
at 2.5 billion pounds.
($1 = 0.7732 pounds)
(Reporting by Iain Withers, editing by Huw Jones)