If a bank makes a loan, nothing is lent, for the simple reason that there is nothing of substance to lend, The bank simply makes what it terms a 'loan' against the amount of money deposited with it at that time. This is all done with the utmost ease. The bank has simply to agree that a person may take out a loan of, say, £5,000. The person taking out the loan can then spend £5,000 and hey presto! £5,000 of new number-money has been created. It is as simple as that! No one with a bank account is sent a letter telling them that the money in their account is 'temporarily unavailable, because it has been lent to someone else', because it hasn't. None of the original accounts in the bank has been touched, reduced or affected in the slightest way... but £5,000 of new spending power has been created; £5,000 of new number-money enters the economy at the stroke of a bank manager's pen...