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Today, it's the turn of Bank of Scotland to try to get back on side with its 180,000 small business customers.

Rather a lot of them seem a bit scunnered at the imposition of sharp increases in banks' interest rates on their overdraft and loan facilities, along with heavy charges even for making the changes.

No more, says the Bank of Scotland business end of the HBOS empire.

There will be a guarantee that the charges and conditions on loans will be held for at least 12 months.

Its likely future merger partner, Lloyds TSB, has made a less specific pledge to maintain overdraft limits and margins at existing levels for SME customers, and to agree to any reasonable request for short-term finance to support any viable business through temporary difficulties.

But before rushing out to celebrate, customers might like to take a look at the small print.

The HBOS guarantee only applies to newly-arranged loans, and there is no mention of lending facilities that are already in place.

There is a promise that the bank's interest rates will track the Bank of England base rate rather than the Libor, London inter-bank offer rate, the price at which banks borrow from each other and more closely reflects the real costs of HBOS raising money.

That's good news for customers. But to say that they'll track the base rate is not to say they are guaranteeing to be anywhere close to it.

Libor is also tracking the base rate, but a gap between the two stubbornly remains.

Bank of Scotland has also announced that it's negotiating with the European Investment Bank to provide loans to small businesses.

This would be at up to 80 basis points below the standard lending rate.

The fund is expected to be 250 million euros, out of a £4bn fund the EIB is making available for British lending. It seems rather modest next to the announcement by HBOS's subsidiary in Ireland that it is setting up special funds worth 1 billion euros to help Irish businesses through recession.

A tenth of that is already committed to helping the hotel industry and as much again for first-time buyers.

And all this is announced a few hours before the Government was expected to set out plans to force the banks to stand by their current voluntary code of lending practice.

On interest rates, it's expected tomorrow that the Bank of England's monetary policy committee will cut its base rate below 3 per cent, following the 1.5% cut last month.

The market has priced in a 50 basis point drop, but there would be no surprise at a full 100 points to 2% - the lowest rate since 1951.

Anything more than a full one per cent cut would take interest rates to their lowest level since the base rate was first set in 1694.

But the crucial element of getting people to respond to lowered interest rates is what people's expectations are of where they will be in future.

And a newly-published Lloyds TSB survey of public sentiment, taken last month and covering more than 2000 people, has some findings that suggest interest rate cuts may not cut much ice with increasingly cautious consumers.

Forty per cent of people reckon interest rates will be higher by this time next year, against 30% who think they will be lower.

And with markets assuming a sharp decrease in inflation, with the risk of deflation, that's not where the public mood was in mid-November.

Some 58% think prices will be up in 12 months time, while 12% think they will fall.

Perhaps the most astonishing finding from the survey was that it found 3% of people who think British employment prospects are brighter than they were last year.

Who can these people be? Eighty-three per cent were aware that things are worsening.