The article reports the results of primary research aimed at eliciting new information on the nature of the relationship between english banks and the business sector over the long period, 1920–68. Bank archives have been used to conduct a microeconomic study of lending by english commercial banks to business clients. Three sets of results are reported. First, on the basis of a sample of over four thousand individual business loans, new data are presented on the nature and duration of business loans, the purposes for which they were used, the banks' requirements regarding collateral and interest rates charged. Secondly, the parameters governing bank practice are examined through the presentation of the reasons for which one of the leading clearing banks, the midland, turned down requests for business loans from a subset of firms. Thirdly, a detailed comparison is made of the loans granted to small private firms and to larger public companies; and regression analysis is used to assess the banks' treatment of the two groups. The data are presented within the theoretical framework of english ‘transaction banking’ which, it is argued, offers a strong rationale for the reported continuity in bank practice over the long term.