The question mark in the header is just so as to (reluctantly) give the Bank of England the benefit of the doubt. Here are the latest stats on the Funding for Lending Scheme, which was supposed to pump £100bn into households and businesses in the UK. Six months in, £13.8bn has been drawn down by British banks, £9.5bn of that coming in the final quarter of 2012. But check out the full table. Click to enlarge So Lloyds has drawn down £3bn and shrank lending by £3bn in the final quarter. RBS has drawn down £750m and shrank landing by £1.7bn in the quarter, while Santander has drawn £1bn and shrank by £2.8bn. Only Barclays seems to be on message, drawing £6bn and managing a cumulative £5.7bn in additional lending since the FLS was introduced at the end of June last year. The Bank, naturally, remains optimistic. Here's Paul Fisher, speaking at a recent University of Bristol event: The FLS has clearly shifted the supply of credit: loans are generally available at lower cost than previously. Even though lending rates have fallen, it is still quite early for much extra money to have flowed from the application stage into actual loans, compared with previous plans which showed that lending was most likely to fall in aggregate without the FLS. I would not expect to see a return to rising aggregate quantities until we start getting data for 2013 at the earliest. Nevertheless, it does seem that we have the beginnings of a revival in mortgage activity which is visible in the approvals data and that trend is widely supported by business contacts throughout the country. Related links: It's too early to call the FLS a flop, ok? - FT Alphaville Credit scheme doubts as lending slows - FT