Brown to announce lending stimulus package Monday

Prime Minister Gordon Brown will announce "a package to get lending moving in the economy" on Monday, he told journalists on the sidelines of a summit on Gaza in Egypt.

"We have recapitalised the banks, we have injected money into the economy, at the same time we know that the essential problem that has been holding back banks internationally is the resumption of lending," Brown told journalists in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Sunday.

"That's what we're going to be doing tomorrow," he said.

The announcement came after Brown told banks on Saturday that they must own up to the extent of their bad assets amid reports his government could launch a fresh bailout of the struggling sector.

Brown did not rule out the possibility that banks could get a further injection of taxpayers' money after big names including Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) were bailed out last year in a 37 billion pound recapitalisation.

"One of the necessary elements for the next stage is for people to have a clear understanding that bad assets have been written off," Brown told Saturday's Financial Times.

"We have got to be clear that where we have got clearly bad assets, I expect them to be dealt with."

Officials are reportedly working on plans to buy banks' bad assets -- exacerbated by some consumers and businesses' inability to pay their debts as the credit crunch bites -- and place them in a "bad bank", or to underwrite the toxic assets.