Growth in lending to small business continues to be negative, if the uptake by banks of the Reserve Bank’s Term Funding Facility is any guide.

The weekly RBA update on this strand of its monetary policy operations shows a steady decline in the value of “Additional Allowance attributed to growth in lending to small and medium enterprises”.

The SME component of this allowance is five times the dollar increase in SME credit outstanding.

Monthly credit data saw additional allowances for SME lending “fall by $1.2 billion and the allowance for Large Business Lending increased by $1.3 billion, creating a net increase in the overall TFF program of only $106 million over the last week”, Peter Sheahan, head of money markets at Curve Securities explained in a client circular on Friday.

The RBA reported the SME-linked value of the TFF drawdown by banks at A$29.5 billion.

Drawdowns peaked at $37 billion in early October.

The “value of Additional Allowance attributed to growth in lending to large businesses” peaked at $48 billion in early July.

The current level of drawdowns under this component, at just under $18 billion is only 38 per cent of the peak.

Total outstanding’s under the TFF are $91.5 billion, and 16 weeks remain for $93 billion to be drawn as the program ends on 30 June – and is unlikely to be extended.