UK public borrowing totals 18.8 billion pounds in Oct

LONDON (Reuters) - British public sector net borrowing, excluding state banks, totalled 18.799 billion pounds ($25.38 billion) in October, official figures showed on Friday, above economists' average forecast in a Reuters poll of 13.8 billion pounds.

The public sector net cash requirement leapt to 61.452 billion pounds in October from 6.061 billion pounds in September, driven by an expansion of the Bank of England's Term Funding Scheme to support lending.

($1 = 0.7408 pounds)

(Reporting by David Milliken, Editing by Paul Sandle)