Deliberately gave nothing to would-be borrowers (5)
I believe the answer is:
lento
'deliberately' is the definition.
(musical direction - played slowly or deliberately)
'nothing to would-be borrowers' is the wordplay.
'nothing' becomes 'O' (O resembles 0).
'to' means one lot of letters go next to another (I've seen this in other clues).
'would-be borrowers' becomes 'lent' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'o' after 'lent' is 'LENTO'.
'gave' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for lento that I've seen before include "How one scores slowly" , "(When playing music) slowly" , "Old sayings" , "Instruction to players" , "Musically low speed" .)