Adam Posen, the external member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), has upped his call for more quantitative easing (QE) to £100bn and proposed a ‘public bank' for businesses struggling to find credit on the highstreet.
Currency volatility will continue to be a major concern for SMEs throughout 2011.
Small businesses plan to use employee benefits instead of pay rises to keep wage costs down whilst retaining staff, MetLife says.
The UK's major banks remain on course to meet their targets for lending to businesses as part of their commitment to Project Merlin.
The government today published proposals for reforming the anti-money laundering requirements on businesses.
Smaller firms are being urged to take up private health insurance to cut absenteeism and boost staff satisfaction.
AWD Chase de Vere is expanding its offering to SMEs by launching an outsourcing service to help them with their HR, tax, IT, finance, administration and payroll.
The banning of commission from 2012 will lead to adverse cost impacts for three quarters of employers, Jelf Employee Benefits (JEB) warns.
Mark Hoban, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, says the government has done what it can to help lending to small business and now the banks must take the lead.
The government has "grossly underestimated" the costs to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) of auto-enrolling employees into a workplace pension scheme, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) says.