It will come as no surprise to you, but just so you know you are not alone: The latest figures from the Bank of England show banks cut lending to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) through the Funding for Lending scheme in the second quarter of 2014 by £400million.

It was even worse for big businesses. Money lent to them went down by £3.5billion.

Funding for Lending is part of the Government's attemp to reinflate the economy by giving banks cheap money with the idea that they are supposed to pass it on to businesses to use to invest and expand, which is good for growth.

Instead the banks have lent most of it to housebuyers as mortgages, still apparently believing that property prices must always go up, in spite of the mess that got them (and the rest of the world) into in 2007-8. When interest rates increase (perhaps in February) it will at least hit consumer demand by removing a considerable amount of disposable income from the economy and could lead to mortgage defaults that will once again hit property prices.

Yet banks still have not learnt. Probably because they felt little of the pain that the rest of society suffered when taxpayers bailed them out of the last crisis.

The fall in commercial lending comes despite the fall in bank funding costs, which you would expect to increase lending, and despite the Government giving participating lenders access to £5 for every £1 lent to a SME.

The total sum of quantitative easing money still in the scheme rather than out in the wider economy boosting demand is £45.7billion – more than half the sum originally allocated when the scheme started in 2012.

Quoted by bridgingandcommercial.co.uk, Ian Currie, Director of corporate finance advisors at Seneca Partners, said: "The high street banks insist [Funding for Lending] is alive and well, but in reality its vital signs are those of a dodo. To be fair, Funding for Lending's failure is a puzzle. It gave the banks access to a cheap and plentiful supply of cash, and the demand for borrowing from businesses seeking to grow - or just manage their cashflow - has stayed strong. And yet the conventional credit pipeline has stayed blocked and net bank lending to businesses is shrinking faster now than at the start of the year."

According to the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), SMEs account for 99.9% of all private sector businesses in the UK, 59.3% of private sector employment and 48.1% of private sector turnover. But it seems that does not impress the banks.

Of course, it is just possible the banks are being prudent. The UK economy is likely to be the fastest growing in the world this year and you would expect the injection of a whole load more cash to lead to a rise in inflation – and if there is one thing banks, which hold huge amounts of money, do not want it is inflation that reduces the value of that money.