How to overcome SME financing obstacles?
Many large firms today grew from small and medium-scale enterprises. Access to the credit market is indispensable for SMEs to grow. Large credit rating firms, such as Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s, and Fitch, usually rate large firms. Thus, large firms can have easy access to credit provided they are financially sound. In the case of SMEs, such rating schemes are scarce. Due to the lack of credit rating indices, it is natural that banks perceive investment on SMEs to be risky. From the lender’s point of view, it is costly to examine the financial health of each and every SME. This cost is also passed on to SMEs, thereby increasing their borrowing costs.
Developing a credit rating index would not only shield banks from risky lending by reducing information asymmetry, but also lower borrowing costs for SMEs that have good financial health and strong growth prospects. Yoshino and Taghizadeh-Hesary (2014) propose a scheme for statistical analysis of the quality of SMEs, which could be helpful for facilitating bank financing to SMEs.
In a more recent study, Yoshino et al. (2015) show how a credit rating scheme for SMEs can be developed and implemented using data on lending by banks to SMEs, even when access to other financial and non-financial ratios is not available. Loan variables of SMEs from the Commercial Credit Scoring Data 2015 of the National Credit Bureau of Thailand are used for the credit risk analysis.
Given the lack of comprehensive credit rating agencies and indices for SMEs, financial institutions can employ these techniques to reduce information asymmetry and consequently set interest rates and lending ceilings for lending to SMEs. This would reduce borrowing costs, i.e., lower interest rates for financially healthy SMEs, and even make possible lending to healthy SMEs without the need for collateral. Finally, this would help financial institutions to avoid lending to risky SMEs and would reduce banks’ NPLs to SMEs.