Kim Nyamushonongora and Oscar Spencer

99.9% of UK businesses are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), employing 61% of the UK population. Yet, we know so much more about large businesses, how they function and particularly how they finance themselves. SMEs have been referred to as the backbone of economies around the world. Therefore, SME’s access to finance is systemically important. Using the SME Finance Monitor, a cross-sectional survey by BVA BDRC on 4,500 SMEs each quarter, we dive into how many SMEs use finance, what finance types they used prior to Covid and during Covid, what characteristics make them more likely to use finance and other relevant questions around SME financing. SMEs are defined as having 249 or less employees.