Banks and financial institutions need to adjust their perceptions of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). A new survey has found that SMEs are not the financially unsound and poorly-managed businesses they are widely thought to be.
'Their real creditworthiness is better than their image,' DP Information Network and Spring Singapore conclude in a joint survey report. The report adds that SMEs are a 'better credit risk with lower probability of default and have, as a consequence, proven to manage their risk better than Singapore's top SMEs'.
Four in every five of the 500 SMEs polled were profitable. Over half (54 per cent) have an annual turnover of between $1m and $10m, 35 per cent have sales exceeding $10m yearly. Over half (56 per cent) have paid-up capital of over $1m. An impressive 58 per cent are still in the growth stage, while 28 per cent have reached maturity.
