59 per cent of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and their brokers say it has change into more and more troublesome to entry development finance over the previous 5 years.

A brand new report from SME funder Praetura discovered that 46 per cent of small companies see entry to finance as one of many greatest challenges they face.

The analysis additionally confirmed that smaller companies don’t really feel that they’re understood by mainstream lenders.

Learn extra: SMEs frightened about entry to finance forward of Basic Election

Simply 27 per cent of SMEs and their brokers suppose excessive avenue banks take the time to grasp their enterprise, whereas 68 per cent suppose that banks help SMEs lower than they’ve in earlier years.

71 per cent of SMEs rejected by excessive avenue banks stated it was because of mismatched lending standards, 56 per cent stated they had been deemed too dangerous, and 44 per cent had unsuitable monetary historical past.

The report discovered that the choice lender ecosystem helps these underserved SMEs, with 51 per cent of corporations that had been rejected for finance by a excessive avenue financial institution going to a specialist lender.

“We have a good time our 5 million SMEs contributing £2.2 trillion to the economic system, however the actuality is that greater than half of that comes from 29,000 excessive development corporations who solely signify 0.6 per cent of the inhabitants,” stated Dame Teresa Graham, chief of the SME advisory group for UK Finance and chair of the executive burdens advisory board at HMRC, who wrote the ahead for the report.

Learn extra: SME funding disaster: 40pc of SMEs report cashflow issues

“While we have a good time this small few, the overwhelming majority of SMEs are struggling to develop at a significant charge.

“The frequent issues limiting SMEs’ potential are entry to markets, expertise, infrastructure and different recognized points, however we hardly ever speak about affected person capital and management.

“Affected person capital is finance on their phrases, from a supplier who takes time to grasp their wants and places their objectives first. While this will likely look like customer support frequent sense within the finance sector, many SMEs are nonetheless unaware of the devices accessible to them past a easy overdraft. And while there may be rather more competitors inside the banking sector for SMEs, not all new entrants supply the complete vary of merchandise that SMEs want.”

Learn extra: SME funding disaster: Insolvencies set to rise