10 Key Highlights on SME Banking

Efma survey of 40 global SME bankers 

This survey conducted by Efma in partnership with FintechOS covers topics such as:

• The most important obstacles to banks’ exposure to SMEs
• The areas where banks feel the greatest competition from Fintechs
• The main growth areas in SME banking
• The biggest challenges to innovation and expanding banking services to SMEs
• The technology challenges banks are currently facing
• The degree of standardization used for SME products and pricing
• The average time spent on approving an SME Loan
• How providing end-to-end digital customer journeys can contribute to a better access to finance
• How tech companies can provide support to improve access to financing for SMEs

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are still underserved by banks, liquidity constraints representing a crucial concern. About 40% of SMEs in developing countries have an unmet financing need of $5.2 trillion every year. In the European Union, which is home to over 25 million SMEs, more half of them believe their business, severely hit by the pandemic, might not survive another year. 

The smaller a business is, the bigger its pressure. When is this need of finance urgent – and how to address this challenge? And what’s to be done to fix this complicated relationship between banks and SMEs? 

We tried to understand the obstacles and sources of pressure bankers have in mind when addressing SMEs, as well as their potential areas of growth and solutions for this segment of customers. To achieve this, we have partnered with Efma to run a survey of 40 SME bankers around the globe. We are inviting you to find out the results of this survey. Enjoy the read!