Banks struggle to find the SME factor

Allegations against RBS’s treatment of struggling small and medium-sized enterprises have once again cast a harsh light on banks’ treatment of these companies. While banks deal with zombie borrowers and tout loans at fat margins to stellar SME credits that don’t want them, it is SMEs in the middle ground that need more help.

Last autumn Euromoney ran a conference that brought together SME borrowers, banks and alternative providers of finance to debate the growing role of new institutional lenders in filling the funding gap for small and mid-cap corporates left by a deleveraging banking system.

Graeme Charnock, chief financial officer of UK ports operator Peel Ports, seemed to speak for many SMEs when he described the difficulties they faced in refinancing credit previously made abundantly available by the banks.

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