LONDON, July 16 (Reuters) - British lenders expect loans for
many categories of borrower to become scarcer or more expensive,
and for more households and businesses to default on their
debts, a Bank of England survey showed on Thursday.
After a surge in lending to businesses driven by
government-backed coronavirus credit programmes, banks said they
expected the supply of credit to increase only slightly over the
next three months, and for loan spreads to widen for large
firms.
Mortgages and unsecured lending to households is expected to
continue to fall in the third quarter, and the cost of mortgage
finance is predicted to increase.
Across all categories of lending, the volume and size of
loan defaults is predicted to rise, according to the BoE's
quarterly survey of major lenders.
(Reporting by David Milliken, editing by Andy Bruce)