SME Finance Monitor
The SME Finance Monitor has been providing independent, robust and respected data on access to finance amongst SMEs since 2011. We have now conducted over 170,000 interviews (4,250 each quarter), building into a considerable data set on SME sentiment around past and future finance needs. Having tracked how SMEs fared after the last recession, we are now monitoring them through the immediate and longer term implications of Covid-19, with regular updates on SME access to finance as well as their growth plans, ambitions and current performance. SMEs were badly hit by the pandemic in 2020. Q3 and Q4 2020 saw something of an improvement, reflected in the Q4 2020 report, which has continued in 2021, but not to the same extent for all SMEs or across all metrics.
Latest data:
SME Finance Monitor Chart Pack Q2 2021
SME Finance Monitor Management Summary Q2 2021
Key metrics for the 3 months to August 2021
Ethnic Minority Businesses Report 2020
The Ethnic Minority Businesses report is based on the experiences of ethnic minority SMEs in the 18 months to Q2 2020 and how those experiences have changed over time.
SME Finance Monitor Q4 2020 - published March 2021
Individual chapters:
Ch 5: The financial context - How are SMEs funding themselves? (Part 1)
Ch 6: The financial context - How are SMEs funding themselves? (Part 2)
Ch 8: An overview of borrowing events
Ch 9: Outcome of Type 1 applications
Ch 10: Why were SMEs not looking to borrow in the last 12 months?
Individual Chapters
SME Finance Monitor data is made available across a range of bespoke reports
- Updates on key metrics are published each month based on the previous 3 months rolling data. The latest period is the 3 months to the end of July 2021.
- A full report is usually published every 6 months, providing the latest data on SMEs by size, sector and region and showing how the market has evolved over time. The latest full report was for Q4 2020, published in March 2021. Read the Management Summary and Chart Pack.
- Every year we publish the annual Regional Report which provides more detail on the English regions and the three devolved nations in the last year and over time. The 2019 report was published in July 2020 and the next report for 2020 will be published in mid-2021.
- We also publish reports on specific sub-groups of interest. The most recent Women-lead business report included data to Q2 2019.and more recent headline data was included in the latest Rose Review update on female entrepreneurship.
- The latest Ethnic Minority Business Report was published in March 2021, including data on ethnic minority SMEs in the 18 months to Q2 2020.
- The full archive of SME Finance Monitor reports can be found here: https://www.bva-bdrc.com/sme-finance-monitor-archive/
