Barclays will lend an extra £1.5 billion to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in 2009.
The bank currently lends around £15 billion to small firms in the UK but plans to increase this to £16.5 billion by the end of the year.
With jobs and homes at risk, the government has put pressure on banks to continue lending to businesses and individuals during the downturn.
Barclays also said it would be providing a credit-checking service to SMEs, CreditFocus, free of charge to all UK small businesses.
Steve Cooper, managing director of local business for Barclays, said: "Two of the leading causes of business failure are late payments and bad debt.
"Our CreditFocus service will help all small businesses, whether or not they borrow or bank with Barclays, to get paid and paid in a timely manner."
In addition, Barclays said it will use the government's new Small Business Finance Scheme in 2009 to support individual business loans from £1,000 to £1,000,000.
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