The underlying issue is one that worries all central banks.

Will banks still be strong enough to fund the recovery, particularly for small and midsized businesses, when government guaranteed loans expire? 

How policymakers answer this question has major implications for bank dividends, financial regulation and the shape of quantitative easing programmes. This makes the next salvo of measures from the European Central Bank all the more interesting.

Last month, the Japanese central bank took the unprecedented step of paying Japan's smaller regional banks an extra 0.1 per cent of interest "to enhance the resilience of the regional financial system". It warned that if profitability were to keep falling, financial intermediation could stop functioning smoothly.

Guaranteed lending has represented almost all small business loans this year across the eurozone, UK and US. Little wonder central banks are being creative to try to improve monetary policy transmission to refresh parts of the economy that other QE programmes cannot reach. New Zealand just introduced a funding-for-lending scheme to help banks lend to small business. And this week the Federal Reserve extended the scheme helping banks fund loans under the payment-protection programme.