Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprise Finance Monitor, 2011-2020

<p>This survey is commissioned by the Business Finance Taskforce to provide an independent and authoritative report into the key issues of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) Finance. 4,500 telephone interviews are conducted per quarter, across the UK (was 5,000 prior to 2016), to a carefully structured sample of SMEs by size, sector and region.</p> <p>The survey explores demand for external funding amongst SMEs and the response to requests for funding made to banks in the last 12 months. It also asks for future finance needs and assesses business confidence, growth, and barriers to growth for the future, as well as the impact of a lending experience on the overall banking relationship. As well as identifying the proportion of SMEs that have approached a lender for external finance, the survey identified those who would have liked to apply, but haven't, the barriers to such an application, and the impact of the decision not to seek funding on business performance. A wide range of business demographics are collected to allow for sub-group analysis by criteria such as age of business, external risk rating, type of facility requested, and the 'formality' of the business (planning, HR policies, importing, exporting etc).The intention is for this to become the definitive data set on this topic for banks, government, business organisations and other interested parties, including academics. It is hoped it will be used to provide answers, to obviate the need for similar quantitative research, and to provide the starting point for spin off projects into specific aspects of SME Finance. Further information may be found on the <a title="BVA BDRC SME Finance Monitor" href="http://www.sme-finance-monitor.co.uk"> BVA BDRC SME Finance Monitor</a> website.</p> <p>Each data file includes all data collected for the last 10 waves, whilst the reports focus on data gathered from the last 4 quarters. The report is released twice per year, although in Q2 2020 the full report was replaced by a smaller chart pack as questions about how businesses were affected by Covid-19 had been added, and these data were needed more urgently.</p> <p><strong>Latest Edition Information</strong></p> <p class="x_x_MsoBodyText"></p> <p>For the 21st edition (January 2021) additional data and documentation were deposited to extend the coverage to Quarter 2, 2020, but also an extra set to Quarter 3, 2020 as third parties had expressed an interest about that latest data, due to it tracking the very topical Covid-19 situation.</p>