Role of Financial Institutions in The GR

Addis Ababa University
School of Business and Public Administration
Department of Accounting and Finance
Role of Financial Institutions in the Growth of Small and Medium
Enterprises in Addis Ababa
A thesis submitted to the Department of Accounting and Finance in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of Masters of Science in Accounting and Finance.
By
Dereje Workie Nigussie
February, 2012
i
This thesis is dedicated to my late mother Ejigayehu Andualem
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Role of Financial Institutions in the Growth of Small and Medium
Enterprises in Addis Ababa
A thesis submitted to the Department of Accounting and Finance in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of Masters of Science in Accounting and Finance.
By: Dereje Workie Nigussie
Chairperson (Graduate Committee) Signature
Approved by Board of Examiners:
__________________________ ___________________
Advisor Signature
_______________________ __________________
Examiner Signature
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Statement of Certification
This is to certify that Dereje Workie Nigussie has carried out his research work on the
topic entitled “Role of financial institutions in the growth of small and medium
enterprises in Addis Ababa”. The work is original in nature and is suitable for
submission for the reward of the Master`s Degree in Accounting and Finance.
Advisor: Wollela A Y (PhD):________________________________
Date: ____________________________
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Statement of Declaration
I, the undersigned, declare that this thesis is my original work, has not been presented for
a degree in any other university and that all sources of materials used for the thesis have
been dully acknowledged.
Declared by:
Name: Dereje Workkie Nigussie
Signature: ____________
Date: ________________
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Abstract
This thesis examines the role of financial institutions, banks and microfinance institutions,
in the growth of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The study focuses on examining the
contribution of financial institutions, assessing the accessibility and affordability of
products and services, and identifying ways of addressing the problems in accessing and
settling loans.
The study adopts a mixed research approach to test the hypothesis and answer research
questions. Specifically, the study uses survey of SMEs, documentary analysis (documents
held by SMEs), and in-depth interviews with banks managers/officials. The study
statistically analyses the results of survey and documentary analysis while descriptive
research approach was employed for in-depth interviews.
Results show that financial institutions were contributing to SMEs growth. Consequently,
the relationship between loans from financial institutions and SMEs growth are positive
and statistically significant. However, the extents of contribution were very low. Further, it
identifies ways of addressing the problems that SMEs face in accessing and settling loans
include: flexing terms and conditions, using alternative collateral and credit facilities,
refinancing, and postponing maturity period. Finally, the thesis recommends a serious of
measures which should be performed by the government and by financial institutions.
These include: creation of a level playing field, lowering transactional costs, and
commercial banks should reappraise their role.
Key words: role, financial institutions, SMEs growth
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Acknowledgments
First and for most, I thank the almighty God for His wisdom and patience that gave me
during my work. I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to my thesis advisor Wollela
Abehodie (PhD) for her invaluable and immeasurable assistance and guidance during my
study. My thanks also go to Addis Ababa University for providing me financial
assistance.
I would also like to give special credit to employees of commercial banks, MFIs and
SMEs for their priceless information that has enriched this study. My thanks also go to
Abel for his editorial comments and all my friends who were with me throughout my
research work.
And finally, I would like to extend my grateful acknowledgements to my family, for their
invaluable encouragement; otherwise it could be a great challenge for me to complete my
study with a great confidence.
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Table of contents
Abstracts ......................................................................................................................... vi
Acknowlegements............................................................................................................ vii
Table of contents ........................................................................................................... viii
List of tables .................................................................................................................... xi
List of abbreviations ...................................................................................................... xiii
Chapter One - Introduction ............................................................................................. 1
1.1. Statement of problems ...................................................................................... 3
1.2. Research objective, hypothesis and research questions .................................... 5
1.3. Research methods ............................................................................................. 6
1.4. Significance of the study................................................................................... 7
1.5. Scope of the study ............................................................................................. 8
1.6. Structure of the study ........................................................................................ 9
Chapter Two - Literature Review ................................................................................. 10
2.1. Theoretical studies .......................................................................................... 10
2.1.1. Overview of Financial Institutions.............................................................. 11
2.1.1.1. Role of Banks ...................................................................................... 14
2.1.1.2. Role of Microfinance institutions ........................................................ 20
2.1.2. Nature and Importance of SMEs in Economic Development ..................... 22
2.1.2.1. What is an SME? ................................................................................. 22
2.1.2.2. Indicators of Growth ............................................................................ 25
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2.1.2.3. General Constraints to SMEs’ Growth ................................................ 27
2.2. Empirical Review............................................................................................ 30
2.3. Conclusion and Knowledge Gaps ................................................................... 34
Chapter Three - Research Methodology ...................................................................... 36
3.1. Hypothesis and Research questions ................................................................ 36
3.2. Research Approaches ...................................................................................... 39
3.2.1. Quantitative research approach ................................................................... 40
3.2.2. Qualitative research approach ..................................................................... 42
3.2.3. Mixed methods approach ............................................................................ 44
3.3. Research Methods Adopted ............................................................................ 45
3.3.1. Quantitative aspect of the study .................................................................. 46
3.3.2. Qualitative aspect of the study .................................................................... 51
3.3.3. Data analysis methods................................................................................. 52
Chapter Four - Results and analysis ............................................................................. 57
4.1. Results ............................................................................................................. 57
4.1.1. Survey results .............................................................................................. 57
4.1.1.1. Respondents’ profile ............................................................................ 58
4.1.1.2. Role of Banks in the Growth of SMEs ................................................ 63
4.1.1.3. Role of MFIs in the growth of SMEs .................................................. 70
4.1.2. In-depth interview Results .......................................................................... 77
4.1.2.1. Bank products and services ................................................................. 77
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4.1.2.2. Microfinance institutions’ products and services ................................ 80
4.1.3. Documentary analysis – regression estimates............................................. 81
4.2. Data analysis ................................................................................................... 84
4.2.1. Research question (RQ1) ............................................................................ 84
4.2.3. Research Question (RQ3) ........................................................................... 92
4.2.5. Hypothesis (H) ............................................................................................ 97
Chapter Five - Conclusions .......................................................................................... 100
5.1. Overview of the thesis and its major findings .............................................. 100
5.2. The implications of these findings ................................................................ 106
5.3. Limitations and further research directions .................................................. 107
References ...................................................................................................................... 109
Appendix 1 - SMEs survey instrument (English version) ......................................... 115
Appendix 2 - SMEs Survey instrument (Amharic Version) ..................................... 122
Appendix 3 - In-depth interviews questions ............................................................... 129
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List of tables
Table 4.1 Respondents’ level of education ...................................................................... 58
Table 4.2 Respondents’ current position ......................................................................... 59
Table 4.3 Respondents by years work of experience ....................................................... 59
Table 4.4 Age of business ................................................................................................ 60
Table 4.5 Types of business activity................................................................................. 60
Table 4.6 Busines ownership form ................................................................................... 61
Table 4.7 Business by number of employees .................................................................. 61
Table 4.8 Business by level of market competition .......................................................... 62
Table 4.9 SMEs by annual sales for 2009/10 fiscal year ................................................. 62
Table 4.10 SMEs by export to total sales ratio in 2009/10 fiscal year ............................. 63
Table 4.11 Access to banks loans ..................................................................................... 63
Table 4.12 Reasons for not having access to bank loans .................................................. 64
Table 4.13 Bank loans applying and received .................................................................. 64
Table 4.14 Bank loans maturity periods ........................................................................... 65
Table 4.15 Bank loans criteria .......................................................................................... 66
Table 4.16 Simplicity of bank loans criteria ..................................................................... 66
Table 4.17 Adequacy of bank loans.................................................................................. 67
Table 4.18 Purposes of bank loans .................................................................................. 67
Table 4.19 SMEs that face problems in paying back bank loans ..................................... 68
Table 4.20 Additional services offered by banks ............................................................ 69

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Table 4.21 Special products and services offered by banks ............................................ 69
Table 4.22 Access to MFIs loans ...................................................................................... 70
Table 4.23 MFIs loan maturity periods ............................................................................ 71
Table 4.24 Simplicity of MFIs loans criteria .................................................................... 71
Table 4.25 Reasons for not having access to MFIs loans ................................................. 72
Table 4.26 MFIs loans criteria .......................................................................................... 73
Table 4.27 Adequacy of MFIs loans ................................................................................ 73
Table 4.28 Purposes of MFIs loans ................................................................................. 74
Table 4.29 SMEs that face problems in paying back MFIs loans .................................... 74
Table 4.30 Additional services offered by MFIs .............................................................. 75
Table4.31 Source of finance to meet workingcapital requirement ................................. 76
Table4.32 Source of finance for medium and long term investment ................................ 76
Table 4.33 Descriptive statistics ...................................................................................... 81
Table 4.34 Regression results .......................................................................................... 82
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List of abbreviations
CSA Central Statistics Authority
ETB Ethiopian birr
ERCA Ethiopian Revenue and Custom Authority
EC European Commission
LDCs Least Developing Countries
MFIs Microfinance Institutions
OLS Ordinary Least Square
SMEs Small and Medium Enterprises
SD Standard Deviation
UNIDO United Nation Industrial Development Organization
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Chapter One
Introduction
Small and Medium enterprises (SMEs) and financial institutions are vital contributors to
the overall performance of an economy. SMEs play a crucial role in developing the
economy and in creating employment. They do not only provide employment and income
opportunities to a large number of people, but also are at the forefront of technological
innovations and export diversification. Similarly, financial institutions play an
indispensable role in firm’s growth and thus industry productivity and economic growth.
They provide a sound medium of exchange and facilitate trading, encourage mobilization
of resources through savings and allocate resources to activities with highest returns,
monitor investments and exert corporate governance, and spreads risks by offering a
diversity of financial instruments. Furthermore, they provide financial assistance to fulfil
the varied needs of enterprises.
Zeller (2003) broadly defined financial institution as an organization, which may be
either for-profit or nonprofit, that takes money from clients and places it in any of a
variety of investment vehicles for the benefit of both the client and the organization.
Common examples of financial institutions are banks, insurance companies, credit
Associations, microfinance, financial and economic firms.
The term SMEs covers a wide range of definitions and measures, varying from country to
country and between the sources reporting SME statistics. Although there is no
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Chapter 1 Introduction
universally agreed definition of SME some of the commonly used criteria are the number
of employees, value of assets, value of sales and size of capital or turnover. However, the
most common basis of defining SMEs is number of employees (Nugent, 2001).
Whatever the definition, and regardless of the size of the economy, the growth of SMEs
is becoming increasingly crucial to economic growth. The issue of SMEs development
ranks high among the priorities of socio-economic development, given the growing need
for employment creation and poverty alleviation (Nugent, 2001). Nugent (2001) further
noted that there is also an urgent need to create a strong competitive SMEs sector that is
able to play a leading role in the development process.
In dealing with the development of SMEs, financial institutions are one essential organ.
Therefore, access to financial services and institutions is a critical element for SMEs
growth. However, there appears to be limited evidence that confirms the contribution of
financial institutions for SMEs growth. To this end, this study is significantly place as its
main focus, the examination of financial institutions role in SMEs growth in Ethiopia,
particularly in Addis Ababa.
The purpose of this chapter is to provide background information on the study. The
balance of the chapter is organized as follows. The first section sets out statement of
problems. The second section provides the research objective. The research methods used
is presented in section three. Significance and scope of the study are presented in section
four and five respectively. Finally, the structure of the thesis is presented in section six.
2
1.1. Statement of problems
Obviously, SMEs constitute the backbone of an economy. The SMEs sector plays a vital
role in the industrial development of the country. World Bank (1994) indicated that
industrial development was earlier believed to have occurred because of large enterprises.
However, starting in the late 1970s and early 1980s, SMEs have become perceived as the
key agent for industrialization. It is recognised that this sector provides not only
employment opportunities to an increasing number of people in the country, but it is also
an effective means of fighting poverty and income inequality. At the same time, SMEs
serve as a training ground for emerging entrepreneurs. It is within this context that SMEs
development became focal attention for governmental as well as nongovernmental
organizations. This requires bringing the specific needs of the enterprise to the center of
the policy-making process, and recognizing that SMEs are to be assisted not because they
are small, but because of their capability to be efficient, innovative and able to compete
in the local and international markets.
However, as Albaladejo (2001) noted, in the majority of developing countries, most
SMEs’ activities are undertaken in the informal sector even though they play a major role
in economic growth. They use their own saving, reinvestment of profits, and own labor as
the main sources for their development. Despite these, their sustainable growth will
largely depend on the capacity of financial institutions to mobilize resources from low
valued to high valued and invest in SMEs activities.
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Since SMEs’ sector does have a very significant role in the Ethiopian economy, the
government was striving to create competitive and productive SME sector. It is for this
reason that the Ethiopian government develops policy so as to address the constraints and
to tap the full potential of the sector. This policy will serve as guidelines to all
stakeholders and thus stimulate new enterprises to be established and existing ones to
grow and become more competitive. When a company is growing rapidly its current
financial resources may be inadequate. Few growing companies are able to finance their
expansion plans from cash flow alone. They will therefore need to consider raising
finance from other external sources. In support of this, the Ethiopia government, in order
to provide adequate supply of financial services to various sectors of the economy,
especially to small business, has evolved a wide variety of financial institutions both at
the national and regional level as an effective means of fighting poverty and income
inequality. Therefore, it is absolutely essential that the financial institutions should
contribute for the development of SMEs not only quickly but also at a minimal cost.
However, as shown in the literature review in the next chapter, there appears to be limited
evidence that confirms the contribution of financial institutions for SMEs growth. In
Ethiopian context, there appears to be no attempt to investigate role of financial
institutions on SME growth. Therefore, the deficiencies of the previous studies along
with the above discussed issues called for the current research.
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1.2. Research objective, hypothesis and research questions
In the context of the problems highlighted above, the broad objective of this study is to
investigate the role of financial institutions, with a particular focus on banks and MFIs,
on the growth of SMEs in Ethiopia, particularly in Addis Ababa by using disaggregated
data. The study was focused on the SMEs growth and to investigate the extent to which
financial institutions may have contributed to this SMEs growth.
To achieve this general objective, one hypothesis and four research questions were
developed.
Ho: Loan from financial institutions, banks and MFIs, does not foster SMEs
growth.
H1: Loan from financial institutions, banks and MFIs, contributes significantly to
SMEs growth.
In addition to the above hypothesis the study has developed the following four research
questions.
RQ1. What roles do financial institutions, specifically banks and MFIs, play in SMEs
growth?
RQ2. What forms of financing are available in financing working capital as well as
medium & long-term loan requirements of SMEs?
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RQ3. Are the financial institutions products and services, accessible and affordable
for the SMEs?
RQ4. How do financial institutions address the problems that SMEs face in the
process of accessing and settling loans?
1.3. Research methods
To achieve the above research objective a mixed research approach is adopted. The main
reason of using such approach is to alleviate the limitations of quantitative and qualitative
research approaches and to gather data that could not be obtained by adopting a single
method. Thus, the thesis uses cross sectional survey of SMEs with semi-structured
questionnaire, documentary analysis (documents held bay SMEs), and in-depth interview
with banks and MFIs managers/officials.
The survey contains both open and close ended questions and administered through
distribution of questionnaires to SMEs. The purpose of survey is to gather data which is
not available from other sources and for standardization of measurement. In order to seek
clarifications and the related products and services that financial institutions have in-
depth interviews were held with banks and MFIs managers/officials. Apart from survey
of SMEs and in-depth interviews with banks and MFIs managers/officials, the study was
used documentary analysis to obtain other facts that may not be obtained through
interviews and administering of questionnaire.
6
Regards to results and analysis, the responses obtained from survey of SMEs was
tabulated and interpreted by using descriptive statistics while descriptive research was
used to present the outcomes of in-depth interviews with banks and MFIs
managers/officials. Finally, the study concurrently analyzes survey and in-depth
interviews results to answer a series of research questions and multiple OLS regression
analysis to test the hypothesis.
1.4. Significance of the study
Yet until now, there appeared to be no attempt to investigate the role of financial
institutions in the promotion of SMEs in Ethiopia. Therefore, this study is the first to
provide a comprehensive approach to the understanding of role of financial institutions
and will intend to fill the gap in this arena.
Generally, this study contributes to the knowledge in many important areas of financial
institutions and SMEs studies. Firstly, it advances to a better understanding of functions
and roles of financial institutions, secondly, it increases the understanding of how
financial institutions influences the development of SMEs and, third, it will pave the way
forward for the government, policy makers, financial institutions and to the general
public at large to understand the different roles of financial institutions in the enterprises
development process.
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Currently, the Ethiopian government gives due emphasis to micro, small, and medium
enterprises establishment and development. The establishment of these enterprises would
eventually lead to the transfer of appropriate technology and its adaption to suit the
environment. This requires bringing the specific needs of the enterprises to the center of
the policy-making process In Ethiopia, perhaps the most important challenge facing
policy makers in industrial development is the financing and technological upgrading of
the myriad of SMEs that formed the back bone of industry and provide the bulk of
employment and income generation. To this end, the current government of Ethiopia has
continued to articulate policy measures and programme to achieve micro, small, and
medium enterprises development, through appropriate alternative funding. The main
sources of funding typically are financial institutions. Therefore, this study is
significantly devoted or place as its main focus, the examination of the financial
institutions role in SMEs growth.
Finally, this study will also be used as a basis for any future study that will examine the
relationship between financial institutions and enterprises and for those who further needs
to explore on some other concerns of SMEs.
1.5. Scope of the study
This research entirely focuses on the role of financial institutions in the growth of SMEs,
particularly in Addis Ababa but, no attempt was made to take any other segment of the
country. The current study further limits itself from those other functions of financial
8
institutions. Thus any functions of financial institutions that they play in the other aspect
of economic growth of the country were not the concern of this study. It is also worth
mention that this research thesis was not being entirely about SMEs instead, it only
investigate the contribution of financial institution for their growth.
1.6. Structure of the study
This research involves five chapters. Chapter one presents background, problem
statement, objectives of the research, significance, and scope of the study. Chapter two
contains a review of the literature. The research methodology is presented in chapter
three. Chapter four presents the results of the different methods used and analysis.
Finally, chapter five presents conclusions.
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Chapter Two
Literature Review
This chapter reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on the role of financial
institutions in the growth of SMEs. This review of the literature establishes the
framework for the current study and provides the deficiencies of the previous studies,
which in turn, help in clearly identifying the gap in the literature and formulating research
questions for the study.
The review has three sections. Section one presents a theoretical review of role of
financial institutions and SMEs development. This is followed by a review of the relevant
empirical studies on financial institutions role in the development of SMEs. Finally,
conclusions and knowledge gaps are presented in section three.
2.1. Theoretical studies
This section briefly sketches different types of financial institutions which have proven
effective in providing services to SMEs. These are banks and MFIs. The section opens
with an overview of financial institutions. This shows the various products and services
that financial institutions have and explain the theoretical role of banks and MFIs to the
development of firms. These give an idea on how financial institutions contribute to the
development of SMEs. Finally, the concern is to show the nature, importance, measures
of growth and constraints of SMEs.
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Chapter 2 Literature review
2.1.1. Overview of Financial Institutions
The European Community programme of policy and action for sustainable development
(1993, p.27) recognized the importance of financial institutions by stating that "financial
institutions which assume the risk of companies and can exercise considerable influence -
in some cases control over investment and management decisions which could be brought
into play for the benefit of the environment". On a more practical level, financial
institutions interact with the environment in a number of ways:
• as investors: supplying the investment needed to achieve sustainable
development;
• as innovators: developing new financial products to encourage sustainable
development;
• as valuers: pricing risks and estimating returns, for companies, projects and
others;
• as powerful stakeholders: as shareholders and lenders they can exercise
considerable influence over the management of companies;
• as polluters: while not “dirty” industries, financial institutions do consume
considerable resources;
• as victims of environmental change: e.g. from climate change
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As Amina (2009) noted the financial sector can have more impact on firms’ growth in
two ways: firstly, a well-developed financial system allows the firms to have access to
financial services, which they are often denied. They need to have access to a large array
of financial services, such as saving facilities, payment instruments, credit, and insurance.
Secondly, the financial sector can also contribute to firm’s growth indirectly, as a
diversified and competitive financial sector plays an important role in economic
development generally. Indeed, a well-functioning financial sector contributes to the
maintenance of economic stability; it provides a means of payment and makes possible
secure financial and commercial transactions; it helps to mobilize domestic and external
savings; and it is crucial for the efficient allocation of capital to productive investments.
In order for firms to benefit from economic growth, the SMEs need to have access to
products/services which is provided by financial institutions.
The common products that financial institutions provide includes: credit, savings,
insurance, credit cards, cash management, and payment services. These points are briefly
described each as follows:
Credit: These are borrowed funds with specified terms for repayment. People borrow
when there are insufficient accumulated savings to finance a business. They also take into
consideration if the return on borrowed funds exceeds the interest rate charged on the
loan and if it is advantageous to borrow rather than to postpone the business operations
until when it is possible to accumulate sufficient savings (Waterfield and Duval, 1996).
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Savings: A financial institution collects funds from the public and places it in financial
assets, safekeeping and uses them to make loans to other customers (Waterfield and
Duval, 1996).
Insurance: This is one of the services and products that are experimented by financial
institutions. The key economic benefits of insurance as risk transfer, indemnification and
financial intermediation (Ward, 2000)
Credit cards: These are cards that allow borrowers to have access to a line of credit if
and when they need it. This card also used to make purchase assuming the supplier of the
goods will accept the credit card or when there is a need for cash (Ledgerwood, 1999).
Payment Services: payment services include checks cashing and checks writing
opportunities for clients who retain deposits. In addition to checks cashing and writing
privileges, payment services comprise the transfer and remittance of funds from one area
to another (Ledgerwood, 1999).
In transferring resource allocation from direct financing to indirect financing, as Amina
(2009) noted financial institutions provide the following five basic services:
• Currency alteration: Buying financial claims denominated in one currency and
selling financial claims denominated in another currencies.
• Quantity Divisibility: Financial institutions are capable in producing a broad
range of quantity from one dollar to many millions, by gathering from different
people.
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• Liquidity: Easy to liquidate the instruments by buying direct financial claims
with low liquidity and issuing indirect financial claims with more liquidity.
• Maturity Flexibility: Creating financial claims with wide range of maturities so as
to balance the maturity of different instruments so as to reduce the gap between
assets and liabilities.
• Credit Risk Diversification (portfolio investment): By purchasing a broad range of
instruments, financial institutions are able to diversify the risk.
The purposes of this section is to present an overview of financial institutions and their
products and services the remaining sections briefly reviews role of banks and MFIs on
the growth of SMEs respectively.
2.1.1.1. Role of Banks
Private, domestic commercial banking is a relatively recent phenomenon in many
developing countries, especially in Africa. From the 1950s through the 1970s, financial
systems in many developing countries were predominantly composed of state-owned
banks and of branches of foreign-owned commercial banks that provided short-term
commercial and trade credit. The state-owned banks promoted economic development
priorities through a network of financial institutions such as agricultural banks,
development banks, and export banks, while borrowing heavily from multilateral and
foreign private banks to support these efforts (Allen and Gale (2008).
14
Allen and Gale (2008) further noted that with the advent of structural adjustment and
financial liberalization in the 1980s, private domestic commercial banking expanded
rapidly. Many new private banks were founded by large business groups to access funds
for their own businesses and corporations. As such, they naturally favored the large
accounts of an established clientele. When granting loans to less familiar clients, banks
protected themselves with asset (mostly real estate) collateral two to three times the value
of the loans. Competition is growing, however, as new banks enter the market under
banking laws that allow more freedom of entry and a less repressed regulatory
environment. The struggle to survive is forcing many of these banks to look at new
markets, including the microfinance market.
Understanding the many roles that banks play in the firm’s growth is one of the
fundamental issues in theoretical economics and finance. The efficiency of the process
through which resources are channeled into productive activities is crucial for growth and
general welfare. Banks are one part of this process. As discussed in Allen and Gale
(2008) banks perform various roles in the growth of firms. First, they ameliorate the
information problems between investors and borrowers by monitoring the latter and
ensuring a proper use of the depositors’ funds. Second, they provide inter temporal
smoothing of risk. Third, they perform an important role in corporate governance. The
relative importance of the different roles of banks varies substantially across countries
and times but, banks are always critical to firm growth. Each of these roles is described as
follows.
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Role of Banks in corporate governance
Banks can exercise in corporate governance of firms through holding enterprise debt or
through ownership rights. Whether banks hold shares or not, they actually have control
over firms but the pattern of effective control is different in the two cases. As creditor’s
banks exercise control over firms using the threat of withdrawing credits; in the case of
long-term loans such intervention is obviously less frequent than in the case of short-term
loans. Banks also intervene if a firm cannot face its promised payment: during periods of
poor financial performance the right to control is transferred from shareholders to
creditors (Boot, 2000). As owners, banks may have their representatives on the company
board and can influence the selection and the dismissal of management. How efficient
banks' role in corporate governance is obviously depends upon the degree of
concentration of debt (the size of loans) and of equity claims (the voting rights) (Allen
and Gale, 2008).
The most common argument in favor of banks having concentrated stakes (debt and
equity) in firms refers to the economies of scale in monitoring managers. Concentrated
stake allows overcoming the public good problem of monitoring: banks act as delegate
monitors for a large number of small savers (Diamond, 1984). In the world of
informational asymmetry between financiers and managers, dispersed security holders
contracting directly with borrowers would either free ride on monitoring (because their
share of the benefit is small) or would have to repeat monitoring individually, which is
16
costly and useless. Both solutions are inefficient. Consequently, it is argued, delegating
monitoring to financial intermediaries contributes to the lowering of the fixed cost of
information collection (Allen and Gale, 2008).
According to Edwards and Fischer (1994) banks have an additional advantage over other
financial intermediaries (such as pension funds or insurance companies) because they
have direct access to important information. Firms usually hold their accounts with the
banks and thus the latter can directly observe all withdrawals and deposits which permit
to assess the firm’s financial situation.
Another theoretical argument in favor of bank intermediation underlines the advantages
of commitment to long-term relationships (Allen and Gale, 2008). The authors argue that
in the situation of incomplete contracts (i.e. when it is impossible to specify all future
actions and payments because these are too complex to be described or because
managerial decisions are not verifiable) banks help reduce moral hazard between
financiers, managers and employees through the creation of the mechanism for long term
commitment. Without such commitment implicit contracts between investor, manager
and employees may be unsustainable (Allen and Gale, 2008).
Finally, it is argued, in the case of firms with cash flow problems, concentrating firms
financial obligations may facilitate coordination and may allow for the reduction of
reorganization or liquidation costs (Hoshi et al., 1994).
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The Risk Sharing Role of Banks
One of the most important functions of the financial system is to share risk and it is often
argued that financial markets are well suited to achieve this aim. Traditional approach
financial theory suggests that the main purpose of financial markets is to improve risk
sharing through exchanges of risk among individuals at a given point in time. However,
this strategy cannot eliminate macroeconomic shocks that affect all assets in a similar
way (Allen and Gale, 2008).
Departing from the Traditional approach, Allen and Gale (1997) focus on the inter-
temporal smoothing of risks that cannot be diversified at a given point in time. They
argue that such risks can be averaged over time in a way that reduces their impact on
individual welfare through inter-temporal smoothing by banks. This involves banks
building up reserves when the returns on the banks’ assets are high and running them
down when they are low. The banks can thus pay a relatively constant amount each
period and do not impose very much risk on depositors.
The Monitoring Role of Banks
The idea that banks exist to reduce the monitoring costs associated with external finance
is central to modern theories of financial intermediation. Rather than having multiple
lenders collect information about the firm’s prospects prior to granting credit and then
simultaneously monitor the borrower’s actions once an investment has been undertaken,
18
potential investors may find it more efficient to delegate these tasks to a bank, through
which they all provide funding to the firm (Diamond, 1984).
This role of banks is particularly important for small-business borrowers, whose small
size and relative opacity make funding through public markets a virtual impossibility, and
leads naturally into the idea of banks as “relationship lenders.” Through their ongoing
monitoring efforts, banks build relationships with their customers that give them valuable
information about these firms’ prospects in the future (Beck, et al, 2004).
The Financing Role of Banks
The banking sector, as noted in Allen and Gregory (2005), specifically commercial
banks, have several ways to get involved in SMEs financing, ranging from the creation or
participation in SMEs finance investment funds, to the creation of a special unit for
financing SMEs within the bank. Banking sector services provided to SMEs, take various
forms, such as:
• Short term loans;
• Repeated loans, where full repayment of one loan brings access to another,
and where the size of the loan depends on the client's cash flow;
• Very small loans or bank overdraft facilities are also appropriate for
meeting the day to day financial requirements of small businesses
• Factoring and invoice discounting,
• Long term loans

19
2.1.1.2. Role of Microfinance institutions
Robinson (1998) defined microfinance as a development tool that grants or provides
financial services and products such as very small loans, savings, micro-leasing, micro-
insurance and money transfer to assist the very or exceptionally poor in expanding or
establishing their businesses. It is mostly used in developing economies where firms do
not have access to other sources of financial assistance. In addition to financial
intermediation, some MFIs provide social intermediation services such as the formation
of groups, development of self confidence and the training of members in that group on
financial literacy and management (Ledgerwood, 1999).
According to Ledgerwood (1999), MFIs can offer a variety of products/ services to
SMEs. The most prominent services are financial. Banks do not often provide these
services to small informal businesses run by the poor as profitable investments. They
usually ask for small loans and the banks find it difficult to get information from them
either because they are illiterates and cannot express themselves or because of the
difficulties to access their collateral due to distance. It is by this that the cost to lend a
dollar will be very high and also there is no tangible security for the loan. The high
lending cost is explained by the transaction cost theory (Christabell, 2009).
As Christabell (2009) the transaction cost can be conceptualized as a non financial cost
incurred in credit delivery by the borrower and the lender before, during and after the
disbursement of loan. The cost incurred by the lender include; cost of searching for funds
20
to loan, cost of designing credit contracts, cost of screening borrowers, assessing project
feasibility, cost of scrutinizing loan application, cost of providing credit training to staff
and borrowers, and the cost of monitoring and putting into effect loan contracts. On the
other hand, Robinson (2003) noted the borrowers cost ranging from cost associated in
screening group member (group borrowing), cost of forming a group, cost of negotiating
with the lender, cost of filling thesis work, transportation to and from the financial
institution, cost of time spent on project appraisal and cost of attending meetings.
The services provided by MFIs can be categories into four broad different categories
(Legerwood, 1999):
• Financial intermediation or the provision of financial products and services such
as savings, credit, credit cards, and payment systems.
• Social intermediation is the process of building human and social capital needed
by sustainable financial intermediation for the poor.
• Enterprise development services or non financial services that assist micro
entrepreneurs include skills development, business training, marketing and
technology services, and subsector analysis.
• Social services or non financial services that focus on advancing the welfare of
micro entrepreneurs and this include education, health, nutrition, and literacy
training.
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2.1.2. Nature and Importance of SMEs in Economic Development
The purpose or goal of any firm is to make profit and growth. A firm is defined as an
administrative organization whose legal entity or framework may expand in time with the
collection of both tangible and in tangible (resources that are human nature) (Penrose,
1995).
2.1.2.1. What is an SME?
The issue of what constitutes an SME is a major concern in the literature. Different
authors have usually given different definitions to this category of business. Some
attempt to use the capital assets while others use number of employees and turnover
level. Others define SMEs in terms of their legal status and method of production.
The European Commission (EC) defined SMEs largely in term of the number of
employees as follows: first, firms with 1 to 9 employees - micro enterprises; second, 10
to 99 employees - small enterprises; third, 100 to 499 employees - medium enterprises.
Thus, the SME sector is comprised of enterprises (except agriculture, hunting, forestry
and fishing) which employ less than 500 workers. In effect, the EC definitions are based
solely on employment rather than a multiplicity of criteria. However, the EC definition is
too all-embracing to be applied to a number of countries.
The UNIDO (1999) also defined SMEs in terms of number of employees by giving
different classifications for developed and developing countries. The definition for
22
developed countries is given as follows: Large firms with 500 or more workers; Medium
firms with 100-499 workers; and Small firms with 99 or less workers. The classification
given for developing countries is also as follows (UNIDO, 1999): Large firms with 100
or more workers; Medium firms with 20-99 workers; Small firms with 5-19 workers; and
Micro firms with less than 5 workers.
In the context of Ethiopia, the Ministry of Trade and Industry adopted official definition
of Micro and Small enterprises as:
• Microenterprises are business enterprises found in all sectors of the Ethiopian
economy with a paid-up capital (fixed assets) of not more than Birr 20,000, but
excluding high-tech consultancy firms and other high-tech establishments.
• Small Enterprises are business enterprises with a paid-up capital of more than
Birr 20,000, but not more than Birr 500,000, but excluding high-tech
consultancy firms and other high-tech establishments.
The Central Statistical Authority (CSA) (2003), for the purposes of its survey on Urban
Informal Sector Activity Operators and Small-scale Manufacturing Industries, attached
various definitions to enterprises in different sectors. The CSA based its definitions on
the size of employment and extent of automation for small-medium- and large-scale
enterprises and used a combination of criteria for defining informal sector operators.
23
CSA definition of enterprises:
• Large and medium scale manufacturing enterprises have been classified as
establishments with more than ten employees using automated machinery.
• SMEs are establishments that engage less than 10 persons using power driven
machinery.
• Cottage/handicrafts are household type enterprises located in households or
workshops normally using own or family labor and mostly manual rather than
automated/mechanical machinery.
The Ethiopian Revenue and Custom Authority (ERCA) also defined enterprises for the
tax purpose as enterprises having below ETB 1million annual turnovers as Small
enterprises, from ETB 1million to ETB 4 million annual turnovers as medium, and above
ETB 4 million annual turnovers as large enterprises.
From the above, it can be understood that the definitions of SMEs in different countries,
even across economic sector in the same nation, is different. This may be a result of the
fact that most nations have higher economic levels than others. Even though every nation
has different definition, SMEs play very important role in its economic activities. In
Least-Developed Countries (LDCs), their role is considered even more important, since
they offer the only realistic prospects to increase employment and value added. Many
LDCs provide employment opportunities for the majority of population who live under
the poverty line. So, SMEs contribute not only economic but also social benefits by
24
reducing crime rate and alleviating poverty (Aung, 2008). They are often described as
efficient and prolific job creators, the seeds of big businesses and the fuel of national
economic engines. Even in the developed industrial economies, it is the SME sector
rather than the multinationals that is the largest employer of workers (Nugent, 2001).
Interest in the role of SMEs in the development process continues to be in the forefront of
policy debates in most countries. Governments at all levels have undertaken initiatives to
promote the growth of SMEs (Cook and Nixson, 2000). SME development can
encourage the process of both inter and intra-regional decentralization and they may well
become a countervailing force against the economic power of larger enterprises. More
generally, the development of SMEs is seen as accelerating the achievement of wider
economic and socio-economic objectives, including poverty alleviation (Cook and
Nixson, 2000).
2.1.2.2. Indicators of Growth
Hoy et al. (1992) stress that a consensus has been reached among academics that sales
growth is the best growth measure. It reflects both short and long term changes in the
firm and is easily obtained. Furthermore these authors maintain that sales growth is the
most common performance indicator among firms themselves.
The growth process as such provides further arguments for advocating sales growth. A
growth process is likely to be driven by increased demand for the firm’s products or
25
services. That is, sales increases first and thus allow the acquisition of additional
resources such as employment or other assets (Ardishvili, et al., 1998). It is also possible
to increase sales, by outsourcing the increased sales volume, without acquiring resources
or employing additional staff. In this case, only sales would increase. Thus, sales growth
has high generality.
On the other hand, there is a widespread interest in the creation of new employment. This
makes employment growth. Another important aspect to capture in the process of
rationalization; it is possible to replace employees with capital investment. In other
words, there is to some extent an inverse relationship between capital investment and
employment growth, as a consequence, assets are another important measure of growth.
Measuring growth in terms of assets is often considered problematic in the service sector
(welnzimmer et al, 1998). This appears to be mainly an accounting problem. While
intangible assets indeed may expand in a growing service firms, this is not reflected in the
firm balance sheet.
There are two basic approaches to measure growth: absolute and relative. Measures of
absolute growth examine the actual difference in firm size from one observation to
another. Growth rates refers to relative changes in size, that is size changes are related to
initial size of the firm typically, by dividing the absolute growth by the initial growth of
the firm.
26
2.1.2.3. General Constraints to SMEs’ Growth
Despite the potential role of SMEs to accelerate growth and job creation in developed and
developing countries, a number of bottlenecks affect their ability to realize their full
potential. SME development is hampered by a number of factors. A set of constraints,
which is not intended to be exhaustive, is identified below.
Input Constraints: SMEs face a variety of constraints in factor markets (Kayanula and
Quartey, 2000).
• Debt and Equity: SMEs have limited access to capital markets, locally and
internationally, in part because of the perception of higher risk, informational
barriers, existence of high collateral to financial institutions, credit rating,
accounting and auditing, economies of Scale and the higher costs of
intermediation for smaller firms. As a result, SMEs often cannot obtain long-term
finance in the form of debt and equity.
• Labor Market: An insufficient supply of skilled workers can limit the
specialization opportunities, raise costs, and reduce flexibility in managing
operations.
• Information and Technology: SMEs have difficulties in gaining access to
appropriate technologies and information on available techniques. This limits
innovation and SME competitiveness. At the same time, other constraints on
27
capital, and labor, as well as uncertainty surrounding new technologies, restrict
incentives to innovation.
• Production inputs: SMEs face constraints in the availability of production inputs.
For instance, better quality raw materials are generally exported or are available
only to larger firms and their suppliers tend to be oligopolies. Inadequate
infrastructure and weak provision of basic services such as transportation, energy,
urban planning and production sites represent particular impediments for SMEs.
• Lending infrastructure: The lending infrastructure includes the information
environment, the legal, judicial and bankruptcy environment, and the tax and
regulatory environments. All of these elements may directly affect SME credit
availability by affecting the extent to which the different lending technologies
may be legally and profitably employed. The final element, the regulatory
environment, may also restrict SME credit availability indirectly by constraining
the potential financial institution structure (Allen and Gregory, 2005).
Output Constraints: Access to domestic and international markets can be constrained by
factors that relate to the size of SMEs (Kayanula and Quartey, 2000).
• Domestic Markets: The diminished role of the state in productive activity and
renewed private investment has created new opportunities for SMEs. Nonetheless,
limited access to public contracts and subcontracts, often because of cumbersome
bidding procedures and/or lack of information, inhibit participation in these
28
markets. Also, inefficient distribution channels and their control by larger firms
pose important limitations to market access for SMEs.
• International Markets: Previously insulated from international competition, many
SMEs are now faced with greater external competition and the need to expand
market share. Limited international marketing experience, poor quality control
and product standardization and little access to international partners, however,
impede expansion into international markets.
Management Constraints: The lack of economies of scale and competition for one of the
most scarce resources, management know-how, place significant constraints on SME
development (Gockel and Akoena, 2002).
• Management skills and training: Even though SMEs tend to attract motivated
managers, they can hardly compete with larger firms. The scarcity of management
talent, prevalent in most countries of the region, has a magnified impact on SMEs.
• Consulting Services: The lack of support services or their relatively higher unit
cost can hamper SME efforts to improve their management because consulting
firms often are not equipped with appropriate cost effective management solutions
for the scale of SMEs.
Regulatory Constraints: Although wide ranging structural reforms have improved
prospects for enterprise development, many issues remain to be addressed at the firm
level (Kayanula and Quartey, 2000).
29
• Taxation & Tariffs: Complicated and inefficient tax codes that include cascading
sales taxes and stamp taxes are least favorable to SMEs. At the same time, the
tariff and non-tariff barriers which favor larger firms that play a role in policy
making are often biased against SMEs (Kayanula and Quartey, 2000).
• Legal: High start-up costs for firms, including licensing and registration
requirements can impose excessive and unnecessary burdens on SMEs. The
absence of antitrust legislation favors larger firms, while the lack of protection for
property rights limits SME access to foreign technologies.
• Labor Markets: Inflexible labor codes and other indirect labor costs bear most
heavily on SMEs, raising their cost of doing business and depriving them of the
flexibility to adapt.
2.2. Empirical Review
In spite of the above theoretical recognition of role of financial institutions and their
contribution to the development of SMEs, there appears to be limited empirical evidence
available and most of them generally focused on challenge of SMEs in access external
finance and on role of financial institutions in economic growth. As a result, slight studies
had been done on the contribution of financial institutions in the development of SMEs.
One line of inquiry points to financial institutions and their role in economizing on
information costs. For example, Rajan and Zingales (1998) argued that well-developed
financial markets and institutions help a firm to overcome problems of moral hazard and
30
adverse selection, thus reducing the firm’s cost of raising money from outsiders. This
thesis uses under this view, firms in less financially developed countries are likely to
exhibit lower levels of firm investments (and firm growth) because of financial
constraints. The thesis basically focused on quantitative aspects by using the cross
country database survey. Consistent with this prediction, several studies find financial
development to be positively related to the level of industry and/or firm growth rates
(Levine, (2005); Kang et al, (2000)).
Patel (2004) argues that, in the case of India, development financial institutions have been
major conduits for channeling funds to firms, industries and sectors during their
development. Other studies (Allen and Gale (1997); Levine (1997)) have identified the
importance of development financial institutions in the South Korean and Japanese
process of industrialization. In Germany, especially in the post Second World War era,
this mode of financial intermediation has been used in national reconstruction as well.
Olu (2009) noted that the MFIs are evident tools for entrepreneurship development due to
the various services they offer and the role they performs towards the development of the
economy. This research study investigates the impact of microfinance on entrepreneurial
development of small scale enterprises that craving for growth and development in
Nigeria. The researcher used questionnaire as an instrument of primary data collection.
The study centers on two broad variables; the dependent variable which is entrepreneurial
development and the independent variable which is MFIs. The study reveals that there is
31
a significant difference in the development of firms which uses MFIs and those who do
not use them; and there is a significant effect of MFIs activities in predicting
entrepreneurial productivity.
Allen and Gregory (2005) also assessed the presence of small and large or state owned
and foreign-owned financial institutions effect on SME credit availability through
comparative advantages in the different lending technologies. In particular, a greater
presence of foreign-owned institutions and a lesser presence of state-owned institutions
are likely to be associated with significantly higher SME credit availability in developing
nations because foreign-owned institutions appear to have advantages in some of the
lending technologies, and state-owned institutions appear to be generally disadvantaged.
Moreover, Allen and Gregory (2005) strongly suggested that “worse” lending
infrastructures may also reduce SME credit availability indirectly. This may occur if a
restrictive regulatory environment constrains the potential financial institution structure,
preventing some types of financial institutions from gaining sufficient market shares to
capitalize on their comparative advantages in specific lending technologies. The research
evidence suggests that some of these effects may be quite strong. Many nations explicitly
or implicitly restrict the entry of foreign institutions. These restrictions may have
significant negative effects on SME credit availability, given the advantages that foreign-
owned banks appear to have in SME credit availability in developing nations. In addition,
the governments of a number of nations maintain large market shares for state-owned
32
financial institutions with lending subsidies and tax collection procedures. These
practices appear to “crowd out” more efficient privately-owned institutions and result in
lower overall SME credit availability, despite the mandates of state owned institutions to
the contrary.
Ageba and Amha (2006) presented evidence on the state of micro and small enterprises
finance in Ethiopia from a survey of 1000 micro and small enterprises in six major towns
conducted by the authors. This thesis deals with the issue of micro and small enterprises
finance and is the first empirical work on trade credit in Ethiopia. It suggests a new venue
to channel funds to micro and small enterprises by linking support to micro and small
enterprises, supplier’s credit and bank lending. It shows that friends/relatives, suppliers
credit, and Iqub1 are the most important sources of finance in that order. The amount
involved (in both stock and flow terms) is also relatively high. Trade credit appears to be
used as a substitute for bank loans. Contrary to the common belief that trade credit occurs
between people with strong social ties, most micro and small enterprises that granted
trade credit and those that received suppliers credit characterized their relation as
‘business only’. More than half of the MSEs that granted trade credit also received
suppliers credit whose amount exceeded what they received, suggesting that suppliers
credit is being passed on to customers. Supplier’s credit thus avails itself as a potential
instrument for banks to channel finance to micro and small enterprises to improve their
access to modern machinery/equipment/tools.
1
rotating saving and credit associations
33
2.3. Conclusion and Knowledge Gaps
The review of empirical evidence reveals that most of the studies used database survey as
their principal source of data which led to expulsion of recent data and low
representativeness. Further, Allen and Gregory (2005) do not assess the overall credit
availability infrastructures to SME. Instead they merely focused on banks technologies.
Olu (2009) on the other hand focuses on the role of MFIs in entrepreneurial development
by ignoring the other institutions which are proven effective in providing services to
SMEs. Lastly, Ageba and Amha (2006) present evidence on the state of micro and small
enterprises finance in Ethiopia not on SMEs and simply argues about the source of
finance and their contribution for the development of micro and small enterprises.
In conclusion, the literature review has showed that, although empirical evidence appears
to be limited, the financial institutions influence the development of SMEs. However,
there is high focus of financial development and firm performance studies in developed
nations. On the other hand, in developing countries there has been a relatively limited
number of evidence on the relationship between financial institutions and SME
development including South Korea, Nigeria and India. Further, previous studies only
focus on financing role of financial institutions by ignoring other roles such as
governance, non financial services/social intermediation services, risk sharing and
monitoring and controlling. Finally, to the knowledge of the researcher, in Ethiopian
34
context there appears to be no attempt to examine the role of financial institutions in the
growth of SME. These gaps in the literature led to the current research questions:
What roles do the financial institutions play in SMEs growth? Are the financial
institutions products/services, accessible and affordable for SMEs? How do
financial institutions address the problems that SMEs face in the process of
accessing and settling loans?
This study is needed for three reasons. Firstly, there is no reliable and comprehensive
study to examine role of financial institutions in SME growth in Ethiopia, particularly in
Addis Ababa. Secondly, it will pave the way forward for the government, policy makers,
and financial institutions to understand the different roles of financial institutions in the
development process. Finally, this study advances the knowledge of how financial
institutions influence the development of SMEs. The following chapter provides details
of the research method in respect of the identified research problem.
35
Chapter Three
Research Methodology
The way in which research is conducted may be conceived of in terms of the research
philosophy subscribed to, the research approach employed and the research instruments
developed and utilized in the pursuit of a goal – the research objective(s)- and the quest
for the solution of a problem - the research question. The purpose of this chapter is to
present the research methodology adopted in this study. The chapter is arranged as
follows. Section 3.1 presents the hypothesis and research questions for the study. The
three common approaches (quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods) to conducting
research are separately presented in section 3.2. Finally, discussions of the choice of the
appropriate methods for this research are presented in section 3.3.
3.1. Hypothesis and Research questions
As presented in chapter one, the broad objectives of this study is to investigate the role of
financial institutions, with a particular focus on banks and MFIs, on the growth of SMEs
in Ethiopia, particularly in Addis Ababa by using disaggregated data. The study was
focused on the SMEs development of, and to investigate the extent to which financial
institutions may have contributed to this SMEs’ development. To achieve this general
objective, one hypothesis and a series of research questions were developed.
36
Chapter 3 Research Methodology
Hypothesis (H)
This thesis builds on earlier studies of Rajan and Zingales (1998); Demirguc¸- Kunt and
Maksimovic’s (1998); and Levine (2005) which showed that the development of a
country’s financial markets and institutions foster firm’s access to external financing and
firm growth rate. So, well-functioning financial institutions affect firms’ ability to get
external finance and firm’s ability to access finance raise firm’s growth.
Perhaps the most prominent external determinant of firm growth is the financial system.
Generally, firms do not make their capital structure entirely with their internal funds to
meet their investment needs. For getting different benefits associated with debt, firms
raise external finance through debt financing. Well developed financial institutions make
easier for firms to access external finance that facilitate firms to grow. Firm growth and
financial system nexus has been analyzed by Levine (2005). Levine (2005) describes the
financial system in terms of information, enforcement, and transaction costs. According
to the author, in a well functioning financial system, financial institutions potentially
shape key aspects of firm dynamics, such as size and growth.
An underdeveloped financial system amplifies the magnitude of market imperfections in
terms of information asymmetry and transaction cost which prevent firms to grow.
Further, it makes firms financially constrained, for which it is complex or too expensive
to get external finance and forced to limit its investment options, and hence its growth.
Levine (2005) also suggest that financial development boosts growth of firms that rely
37
heavily on external finance by reducing the transaction costs and informational barriers
and supports more the industries that comprises of small firms.
In light of this, it is hypothesized that:
growth.
H1: Loan from financial institutions, banks and MFIs, contributes significantly to
SMEs growth.
Because as Albaladejo (2001) noted the challenge for many SME’s development is
access to financing, in particular, many SMEs find it difficult to finance their production
cycle after they start up their operation. On the contrary, when the contribution of
financial institutions is low, it is less likely that such a growth rate will occur. The reason
is that firms in less financing access are less able to respond systematically to sector
growth opportunities because shortage of finance prohibit firms to the best investment
opportunities.
Research Questions (RQ)
In addition to the above hypothesis the study has developed the following four research
questions.
38
RQ1. What roles do financial institutions, specifically banks and MFIs, play in
SMEs growth?
RQ2. What forms of financing are available in financing working capital as well
as medium & long-term loan requirements of SMEs?
RQ3. Are the financial institutions products and services, accessible and
affordable for the SMEs?
RQ4. How do financial institutions address the problems that SMEs face in the
process of accessing and settling loans?
The discussion so far presented the hypothesis and research questions developed based on
the broad objective of the study. The research problem along with the philosophy of
research methodology would guide the choice of the appropriate research method. The
following section describes the three common approaches to conducting research.
3.2. Research Approaches
This section introduces the fundamental elements of research approaches. The three
common approaches to conducting research are quantitative, qualitative, and mixed
methods. Researchers typically select the quantitative approach to respond to research
questions requiring numerical data, the qualitative approach for research questions
requiring textural data, and the mixed methods approach for research questions requiring
both numerical and textural data (Carrie, 2007). The subsequent discussions present the
39
basic features of quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods research approaches in an
orderly manner.
3.2.1. Quantitative research approach
Quantitative research is the one in which the investigator primarily uses positivist claims
for constructing knowledge. Positivists believe that reality is stable and can be observed
and described from an objective viewpoint i.e. without interfering with the phenomena
being studied (Philips, 1990). This often involves manipulation of reality with variations
in only a single independent variable. Predictions can be made on the basis of the
previously observed and explained realities and their inter-relationships. Positivism has
also had a particularly successful association with the physical and natural sciences
(Philips, 1990).
Quantitative research places the emphasis on measurement when collecting and analyzing
data. Quantitative research is defined, not just by its use of numerical measures but also
that it generally follows a natural science model of the research process measurement to
establish objective knowledge (that is, knowledge that exists independently of the views
and values of the people involved). Quantitative research can be used in response to
relational questions of variables within the research (Leedy and Ormrod (2001) cited in
carrie, 2007).
40
Well designed and implemented quantitative research has the advantage of making
generalizations to a wider population from the sample. To enhance the generalization of
findings, quantitative research approach follow standardized procedures in sample
selection, instrument design, implementation and analysis. Standardization in turn
enhances the reliability of findings and alleviates the impact of investigator and subjects
biases. Despite these advantages, quantitative research design has a number of
limitations: lack flexibility in design, standardization can cause bias or hinder
exploitation of new ideas, and lack interpretive and exploratory examination of a research
problem (Creswell, 2003).
A quantitative research approach employs strategies of inquiry such as experiment and
survey; collects information using preset standardized instruments; and uses statistical
methods in describing patterns of behavior and generalizing from sample to populations.
A survey research is one of the ways to gather data in the social sciences. In line with
this, a survey design provides a quantitative or numeric description of trends, attitudes, or
opinions of a population by studying a sample data with the intention of statistically
generalizing to the population under investigation (Creswell, 2003). Survey enables the
researcher to obtain data about practices, situations or views at one point in time through
questionnaire.
Under the experimental research, the researcher investigates the treatment of an
intervention into the study group and then measures the outcomes of the treatment (Leedy
41
and Ormrod (2001) cited in carrie, 2007). The use of survey permits the investigator to
study more variables at one time than is typically possible in experiments (Carrie, 2007).
3.2.2. Qualitative research approach
Qualitative research approach is the one in which the investigator often makes knowledge
claims based on the multiple meanings of individual experiences, socially and historically
constructed meanings, participation in issues, collaboration or change oriented with an
intent of developing a theory or pattern. In contrast to quantitative research design,
qualitative approach is rooted on the philosophy constructivist. Constructivists contend
that only through the subjective interpretation of and intervention in reality can that
reality is fully understood (Mertens, 1998). The study of phenomena in their natural
environment is the key to the constructivist’s philosophy (Mertens, 1998). This approach
tries to examine experiences and events within their natural setting and understanding a
phenomenon under investigation in its entirety (Creswell, 2003).
Marshall and Rossman (1999) noted that qualitative research emphasizes meanings
(words) rather than frequencies and distributions (numbers) when collecting and
analyzing data. Qualitative research is also described as an unfolding model that occurs in
a natural setting that enables the researcher to develop a level of detail from high
involvement in the actual experiences. There are different types of research designs that
use qualitative research techniques to frame the research approach. As a result, the
different techniques have a dramatic effect on the research strategies explored. What
42
constitutes qualitative research involves purposeful use for describing, explaining, and
interpreting collected data. Marshall and Rossman (1999) further emphasized that
qualitative research is less structured in description because it formulates and builds new
theories. Qualitative research can also be described as an effective model that occurs in a
natural setting that enables the researcher to develop a level of detail from being highly
involved in the actual experiences (Creswell, 2003).
A qualitative research approach uses strategies of inquiry including narratives,
ethnographies, case studies, observations, interviews, and the findings are communicated
subjectively through descriptions using words rather than numbers (Creswell, 2003,
p.186-187).
Qualitative research design has its own advantages and disadvantages. The advantage of
a qualitative research design is that it is flexible and emergent without being constrained
by standardized procedures that the investigator to explore and understand phenomena
entirely in their natural setting (Creswell, 2003). Wimmer and Joseph (2006) also
justified that qualitative techniques can increase a research’s depth of understanding of
the phenomenon under investigation. Another advantage of qualitative methods is that
they allow the researcher to listen carefully to what participants say, engage with them
according to their individual personalities and styles, and use “probes” to encourage them
to elaborate on their answers.
43
In spite of the above advantage, qualitative research design has its own limitations: lack
of standardized rules reduces the objectivity of the findings, the personal view and stand
of the researcher may induce bias in the interpretation of the data, and the findings cannot
be statistically generalized for a broader population under investigation (Creswell, 2003).
3.2.3. Mixed methods approach
As indicated in the above discussion, both quantitative and qualitative research
approaches have limitations. According to Sale et al. (2002) the advantage of a
quantitative research approach may be limitations for a qualitative approach and vice
versa.
Mixed research design, which is supposed to alleviate the limitations of quantitative and
qualitative approaches, bases on pragmatic knowledge claims. Pragmatists contend that
knowledge claims arise out of actions, situations, and consequences rather than
antecedent conditions. There is a concern with applications and solutions to problems.
Instead of methods being important, the problem is most important, and researchers use
all (mixed method studies) approaches to understand the problems (Creswell, 2003).
Sale et al (2002) instanced that it has often been observed very accurately that no single
research methodology is intrinsically better than any other methodology, many authors
calling for a combination of research methods in order to improve the quality of research.
Researchers incorporate methods of collecting or analyzing data not only numerical data,
44
which is customary for the quantitative research, but also narrative data, which is the
norm for qualitative research in order to address the research question(s) defined for a
particular research study. The goal for researchers using the mixed methods approach is
to draw from the strengths and minimize the weaknesses of the quantitative and
qualitative research approaches (Carrie, 2007).
To sum up, quantitative and qualitative research methods investigate and explore the
different claims to knowledge and both methods are designed to address a specific type of
research question. While the quantitative method provides an objective measure of
reality, the qualitative method allows the researcher to explore and better understand the
complexity of a phenomenon. The discussion so far presented a clear statement of what
constitutes quantitative and qualitative research approaches and summarized techniques
used to conduct studies for both research approaches. Further the discussion so far
showed the nature of mixed methods research approach. The following section provides
details of the research design in respect of the identified research problem.
3.3. Research Methods Adopted
Scientific problems can be solved only on the basis of data and a major responsibility of
the investigator is to set-up a research design capable of providing the data necessary for
the solution of the study problem. The more clearly and thoroughly a problem and its
ramifications are identified, the more adequately the study can be planned and carried to
a successful completion. Therefore, it was tried to avoid what may be characterized as

45
methodological monism, i.e. the insistence on using a single research method. This is not
due to an inability to decide between the various advantages and disadvantages of the
various alternatives. Instead, it is believed that all methods are valuable if used
appropriately, that research can include elements of both the qualitative and quantitative
approaches, if managed carefully. In light of the research problem and the underlying
philosophy of each research approach highlighted above, the current research combines
both qualitative and quantitative research approaches. That is, to get the benefits of a
mixed method approach, as presented earlier, and to mitigate the bias in adopting only
one approach. The quantitative aspect, qualitative aspect, and data analysis methods
adopted in this study are further elaborated in the following sections.
3.3.1. Quantitative aspect of the study
The quantitative aspect of the research method intends to obtain data needed to generalize
about financial institutions role in SMEs growth in Ethiopia, particularly, in Addis
Ababa. To gather data for quantitative aspect of the current study, survey design and
documentary analysis were employed to examine the role of financial institutions in
SMEs growth. The following section reveals the survey design and documentary analysis
of this study respectively.
46
3.3.1.1. Survey design
To obtain data at one point in time from a sample selected relevant for the investigation
of financial institutions role on SMEs growth, this study employed a cross-sectional
survey with semi-structured questionnaires, which administered through distributing to
sample of SMEs in Addis Ababa.
The adoption of survey method is to obtain information that was not available from other
sources and for standardization of measurement (same information collected from every
respondent). In this regard, Linda (2002) noted the nature of survey methods include
standardization of measurement, use of probability sampling, and uniqueness of
information. Typically, there are many modes of survey administration includes face –to-
face, telephone, mail, web, and combination of methods.
The use of mail and web modes of survey design has many advantages. However, due to
under developed communication system and illiteracy, the current study used paper semi
structured questionnaire.
The questionnaire is perhaps, the most used and the most abused survey instrument
(Osuala, 2005). Questionnaire really constitutes the first attempt at scaling. The
questionnaires are advantageous whenever the sample size is large enough to make it
economical for reasons of time or funds to observe or interview every subject. The
greatest difficulty with questionnaires that are distributed to the subjects or potential
47
respondents is the probable bias which exists when less than the total number in the
sample actually responds to the questionnaires. The questionnaire was prepared and
distributed to ensure fair and equitable distribution and response from the respondents
which was expected to give a true or fair representation of the views of the respondents to
allow for generalization in the final analysis.
Sample Design
In selecting sample, three factors determine the size of an adequate sample includes:
nature of population, types of sampling design and degree of precision desired (Salant
and DIllman, 1994). Using a sample that is too large is a waste of resources while using
a sample that is to small means getting results that are likely to be lacking in validity. In
light of this, to select adequate sample size, the following procedures were employed.
First the population was defined as the business operators in the SMEs sector spread
across Addis Ababa. Second 30,000 enterprises were identified as population units which
were registered both in Addis Ababa Trade and Industry Bureau and Ethiopian
Investment Agency. The researcher uses a combination of both Addis Ababa Trade and
Industry Bureau, CSA (2003), and UNIDO definitions of SMEs (see section 2.1.2.1.).
Third stratification units were categorized among ten districts; finally 170 SMEs were
proportionally selected from each district.
48
Random sampling technique was employed that draw a portion of a population so that
each member of the population has an equal chance of being selected. A sample drawn at
random is unbiased in the sense that no member of the population has any more chance of
being selected than any other member. Therefore, sample size was determined by using
random sample calculator at 90% confidence level, 5% error level and 30,000 sample
frame as list of units in the population.
Survey instrument
The survey instrument contains both open and closed questions. The open questions give
the respondent freedom to decide the aspect, detail and length of his/her answer. It
enables the respondents to give a more adequate presentation of his/her particular case
and convey flexibility in his/her choice. The closed questions on the other hand are
designed to keep the questionnaire to a reasonable length and this encourages response
and validity in terms of the representativeness of the returns. It minimizes the risk of
misinterpretation unlike the former. It also permits easier tabulation and interpretation for
the researcher.
The questionnaire was designed in three main sections. The first section is SMEs
respondent’s profile. The second and third section possesses the questions relating to the
subject matter of the inquiry. These sections were designed to collect both qualitative and
quantitative data on financial institutions role in SMEs growth. Specifically, questions
relating to role of banks and MFIs respectively. The responses for these second and third
49
sections form the basis for the analysis. This represents purely the primary source of data
collection and it was prepared in both English and Amharic accordingly for the purpose
of clarity and ease understanding of the informants. The English and Amharic version
questionnaires are presented in appendices 1and 2 respectively.
Conduct of survey
The survey with randomly selected sample SMEs were conducted in the period between
June and July, 2011. The survey questions were developed by translating the research
questions and research objective in to questions. Then it was given to the research advisor
for final suggestions and comments. Then 170 SMEs were contacted based on their
address found in Addis Ababa micro and small enterprises bureau and in Ethiopian
Investment Agency at their home office and questionnaires were distributed after
explaining the purpose of the study and getting their consent to participate in the survey.
However, some of the addresses were found incorrect and were replaced by others. But,
only 149 SMEs were returned the questionnaires. Twenty one SMEs owner/managers
refused to return the questionnaires. Those who chose not to return typically gave reasons
such as they were too busy and they never participate in surveys.
3.3.1.2. Documentary analysis
This method of data collection is based on observations or informal conservations. They
are usually incomplete and biased, but in certain cases they are very useful. As Osuala
50
(2005) noted documentary analysis reveals many facts and relevant information that may
not be obtained through other methods. Therefore, in addition to survey of SMEs,
documentary analysis (both time series and cross sectional; and both quantitative/numeric
and qualitative data) was used for the study which take a variety of forms held by SMEs
for the period between 2005/6 and 2009/10 such as financial statements, archival records,
personal documents, and administrative documents. This form of data collection
constitutes the secondary source of data for the study in order to have some information
on the different variables that may not be obtained through interviews and administering
of questionnaire.
3.3.2. Qualitative aspect of the study
To substantiate the data obtained through survey and documentary analysis and to get
clarification on some issues, in-depth interviews with banks and MFIs managers/officials
was also used. This form of data collection procedures constitutes the qualitative aspect
for the study. The following section thus presents the content and the way in which in-
depth interviews were used.
3.3.2.1. In-depth interviews
As a research method, the interview is a conversation carried out with the definite aim of
obtaining certain information. It is designed to gather valid and reliable information
through the responses of the interviewee to a planned sequence of questions.
51
Unstructured interview, which is highly favored for its flexibility and detailed
clarification Wimmer and Joseph (2006), has been used for the study in order to have
some explanations on role of financial institutions in SMEs development and their
products and services. There were thirteen banks and ten MFIs which were working in
Addis Ababa out of which eight banks and six MFIs managers/officials were selected
through purposive sampling technique. To substantiate the data obtained through in-depth
interviews with banks and MFIs managers/officials, information from documentary
studies were also employed. The interview questions were developed by translating the
research questions and research objective in to questions. Then it was given coupled with
survey questions to the research advisor for final suggestions and comments. Interview
questions are presented in appendix 3.
3.3.3. Data analysis methods
In order to investigate the role of financial institutions in the growth of SMEs, the results
obtained from the above mentioned data gathering instruments were separately presented
and jointly analyzed to address the various research questions and to test the hypothesis.
With respect to survey, the responses obtained from survey of SMEs was tabulated and
interpreted by using descriptive statistics. Regarding in-depth interviews descriptive
research approach was employed to present outcomes of in-depth interviews with banks
and MFIs managers/officials. Finally, to assess the relationship between SMEs growth
(i.e. sales growth) and financial resources from financial institutions, regression analysis
52
was used. It was used annual sales as a measure of firm growth as dependent variable
because of the difficulty of obtaining realistic information on profits earned. This
conforms to the studies by Wijewardena and Cooray (1995); Wijewardena et al. (1999);
and Esra, (2003), which have used sales growth as a key indicator of small business
success and growth. To this end, the current study also used sales growth as an indicator
of firm growth and it was measured by the growth rate in percentage terms. Hence, the
dependent variable includes information of both positive and negative growth.
Sales growth is significantly influenced by the following set of variables: external
finance, firm size, age of firms, and internationalization (Esra, 2003). Perhaps the most
prominent determinant of firm growth is the financial resources. Generally, firms do not
make their capital structure entirely with their internal funds to meet their investment
needs. For getting different benefits associated with debt, firms raise external finance
through debt financing. Thus, financial institutions make easier for firms to access
external finance that facilitates firms to grow. Accordingly, the expected coefficient of
the variable is positive.
In addition to financial resources from financial institutions, the independent variables
include firm’s size, firm’s age, and internationalization. The size of firms is included in
the model because it can be expected that the larger firms grow faster than smaller ones
due to their ability to employ high skilled, skillful managers and workers and to achieve
more efficient product facilities. Accordingly, the expected coefficient of the firm size
53
variable is positive. Another factor could be the age of firms because, younger firms,
would grow rapidly due to innovative ideas and dynamic management. On the other
hand, older firms may achieve stronger growth because of their experience. Thus, the
expected coefficient of the age variable can be either positive or negative. The
internationalization of firms is included in the model because it can be expected that
firms, active in export trade, may be relatively more capable of increasing their sales.
To empirically test the relationship between the dependent and independent variables
discussed so far, particularly whether β1 is statistically significantly positively different
from zero, the following multiple OLS regression model was applied:
: Growth of enterprises i at time t; i = 1, 2, . . ., 149 enterprises
: The intercept of equation
: Coefficients of X i t variables
: The different independent variables for growth of enterprises i at time t
t : Time = 1, 2,……,5 years; i: number of enterprises
: The error term
Specifically, when the above general least squares model converted into current study
specified variables it becomes:

54
Where:
= a constant; the average growth when all independent variables are zero
= the coefficient; the contribution of each marginal change in independent
variables on SME growth respectively.
= the error term; the error in predicting the value of growth, given the value of i
variables
The variables (with expected sign in parenthesis) are:
= Growth (defined as percentage change in sales volume for i enterprises at
time t for the last five years from 2005/06 to 2009/10), or what is being
predicted or explained
= Loans from banks and MFIs, defined as percentage change in total
borrowed capital for i enterprises at time t (+)
= Size of firm, defined as percentage change in both permanent and
temporary employees of i enterprises at time t over the period of last five
years -2005/06 to 2009/10 (+)
= Age of enterprises i at time t (- or +)
55
= Internationalization of firms, Dummy variable that equals 1 if SME have
export strategy and 0 otherwise (+).
In conclusion, survey of SMEs, documentary analysis (documents held by SMEs), and
in-depth interviews with bank and MFIs managers/officials were separately held to gather
data for the quest of the research objective. The results from these methods of inquiry
was separately presented and jointly analyzed to address the various research questions
and to empirically test the hypothesis. The analyses were based on the results obtained
and literature guide. The next chapter presents the results and analysis of each of these
methods of inquiry.
56
Chapter Four
Results and Analysis
The preceding chapter presented the hypothesis and research questions along with choice
and rationale of the research approaches adopted for this study. This chapter presents
respectively the results and analysis of the findings of different research techniques used.
The first section presents the outcomes of the different methods used independently.
Next, the results obtained using different methods are jointly analyzed in section two to
address the hypothesis and each research question.
4.1. Results
This section presents respectively the survey results obtained from sample SMEs and in-
depth interview results gathered from selected financial institutions and the results of
regression model based on the available information (financial as well as non financial)
accumulated from SMEs records.
4.1.1. Survey results
As indicated in the previous chapter, survey was the main strategy of inquiry adopted to
investigate the role of financial institutions in the growth of SMEs. To this end, the
results obtained from the survey are presented in three parts. The first part reveals
respondent’s profile. This is followed by role of banks and MFIs on the growth of SMEs
in part two and part three respectively.
57
Chapter 4 Results and Analysis
4.1.1.1. Respondents’ profile
Data for the analysis in this study were collected from 149 owners/managers of small and
medium sized firms out of a sample size of 170 SMEs located in Addis Ababa city. These
owners/managers and their businesses were randomly selected from the register of
Ethiopian Investment Agency and Addis Ababa Trade and Industry Bureau. A response
rate of 87.6 percent was achieved. Those who chose not to participate typically gave
reasons such as they were too busy or they never participate in surveys. All the survey
respondents were located in Addis Ababa.
About 30 percent of survey respondents had bachelor degree, while 22.8 percent hold
Diploma, 40 percent hold less than diploma, and 6 percent had a Master Degree or
above in a particular profession (table 4.1.).
Table 4.1 Respondents’ level of education*

Level of education Frequency Percent
Diploma 34 22.8
Degree 45 30.2
Masters and above 9 6.0
Others 61 40.9
Total 149 100.0
*Totals may not agree due to rounding
Sources: SMEs survey
58
Regarding the current position, 56.4 percent of the survey respondents were managers
while 36.9 percent and 6.7 percent of the respondents were owners/mangers and sales
persons respectively (table 4.2).
Table 4.2 Respondents’ current position*

Current Position Frequency Percent
Managers 84 56.4
Owners/Managers 55 36.9
Sales person 10 6.7
Total 149 100.0
In terms of year of experience, 63.8 percent of the survey respondents had 1 to 5 years of
work experience while 19.5 percent had 5 to 10 years of experience. The rest had less
than 1 year and more than 10 years of experience (table 4.3).
Table 4.3 Respondents by years of work experience*

Years of experiences Frequency Percent
Less than one year 20 13.4
1-5 years 95 63.8
5-10 years 29 19.5
More than 10 years 5 3.4
Total 149 100.0
59
Regarding the age of business, 60 percent of survey respondents’ firms were less than
five years old while 40 percent indicated that their businesses existed for more than five
years (table 4.4).
Table 4.4 Age of business*

Age of business Frequency Percent
Less than one year 2 1.3
1-5 years 88 59.1
5-10 years 49 32.9
More than 10 years 10 6.7
Total 149 100.0
In terms of business activities, about 31.5 percent, 27 percent, 20.8 percent, and 16.8
percent of survey respondents were manufacturing, services, construction, and trade
respectively. The rest were agriculture and others business activities (table 4.5).
Table 4.5 Types of business activity*
Business activities Frequency Percent

Manufacturing 47 31.5
Trade 25 16.8
Agriculture 2 1.3
Services 40 26.8
Constriction 31 20.8
Others 4 2.7
Total 149 100.0
60
As to forms of business ownership, 43.6 and 36.2 percent of survey respondents were
sole proprietors and private limited companies (Plc) respectively. The rest were
partnership and others (Table 4.6).
Table 4.6 Business ownership form*

Forms of ownership Frequency Percent
Sole proprietorship 65 43.6
Partnership 30 20.1
PLC 54 36.2
Total 149 100.0
According to the data presented in Table 4.7, about 41.6 percent of business surveyed had
between eleven and twenty employees while 32.9 percent had less than ten employees
and the balance was for those that had more than twenty employees.
Table 4.7 Business by number of employees*

Range of number of employees Frequency Percent
1-10 49 32.9
11-20 62 41.6
21-50 30 20.1
51-100 8 5.4
Total 149 100.0
61
Almost 91.3 percent of SMEs faced some degree of market competition while 8.7 percent
had no market competition in their sector (table 4.8).
Table 4.8 Business by level of market competition*

Degree of market competition Frequency Percent
No competition 13 8.7
Moderate competition 93 62.4
Strong competition 39 26.2
Severe competition 4 2.7
Total 149 100.0
In terms of annual turnover, during the 2009/10 fiscal year, 14.8 percent of survey
respondents had total sales of birr10, 000 or less. About 21.5 percent, 18.8 percent, 17.4
percent, and 27.5 percent of SME survey respondents had total annual sales of birr
10,001 to birr 50.000, birr 500,001 to birr 100,000, birr 100.001to one million birr, and
above one million birr respectively (Table 4.9).
Table 4.9 SMEs by annual sales for 2009/10 fiscal year*

Range of total sales Frequency Percent
birr 10,000 and less 22 14.8
birr 10,001 -50,000 32 21.5
birr 50,001-100,000 28 18.8
birr 100,001-1,000,000 26 17.4
more than birr 1,000,000 41 27.5
Total 149 100.0
62
According to the data presented in table 4.10, about 81.2 percent of survey respondents
sold their products/services in the domestic market. However, the firms participating in
export trade had low proportion of export to total sales.
Table 4.10 SMEs by export to total sales ratio in 2009/10 fiscal year*
Export to total sales ratio Frequency Percent
No 121 81.2
1-10% 5 3.4 1
11-20% 23 15.4
Total 149 100.0

4.1.1.2. Role of Banks in the Growth of SMEs
To capture information regarding the relative importance of banks in SMEs growth,
survey respondents were asked about the accessibility of bank products and services.
About 59.7 percent of survey respondents had access to financial resources from banks.
The balance had no access to the financial resources provided by banks (table 4.11).
Table 4.11 Access to bank loans

Access to banks loans Frequency Percent
Yes 89 59.7
No 60 40.3
Total 149 100.0
63
In order to investigate factors for inaccessibility of bank loans, survey respondents were
asked to indicate the reasons. As presented in table 4.12, some SMEs were discouraged
from applying by high collateral requirement (76.7 percent), difficulty of processes
involved (75 percent), high cost of borrowing (18.3 percent) while some were due to lack
of knowledge about the facility, or where and how to apply (11.7 percent) and fear of
repayment ability (51.7 percent).
Table 4.12 Reasons for not having access to bank loans (multiple answers were possible)*
Reasons for not having access to bank loans Frequency Percent
Inadequate collateral 46 76.7
Process too difficult 45 75.0
Fear of inability to repay 31 51.7
High borrowing cost 11 18.3
No need for credit 0 --
Others 7 11.7
To investigate the real accessibility of bank loans, SMEs that had access to financial
resources were asked whether they ever applied and received bank loan (table 4.13).
Table 4.13 Bank loans applied and received**

Bank loans received Frequency Percent
Yes 89 100.0
No 0 0.0
Total 89 100.0
** To those that have access to bank loans only
64
SMEs that applied and received loans were also asked about terms of credit (i.e. maturity
period) involved in relation to bank loans. This is to distinguish whether the loan was
used for short term working capital needs to finance operating activities (37.1 percent) or
for financing of medium and long term financing requirement (62.9 percent) (table 4.14).
Table 4.14 Bank loans maturity periods*

Loans maturity Periods Frequency Percent
Less than 1 year 33 37.1
1-3 years 40 44.9
3-10 years 16 18.0
More than 10 years 0 0
Total 89 100.0
* To those that applied and received bank loans only
The use of collateral/guarantee to secure loans was also quite common among all types of
lenders (except informal sources such as iqub, friends and relatives) with noticeable
differences in the extent of coverage. Looking at table 4.15, it can be noted that the
criteria in granting bank loans were based on various types of securities/guarantee. About
98.9 percent of survey respondents that had access to bank loans indicated that
enterprises must have valid documents of property ownership certificate while 91.2
percent were showed that enterprises must present third party guarantee as collateral. The
rest of survey respondents indicated that banks were assessing previous loans records and
current business status.
65
Table 4. 15 Banks loans criteria (multiple answers were possible)*

Loans criteria Frequency Percent
Collaterals 90 98.9
Business plan 7 7.7
Third parties guarantor 83 91.2
Others 2 2.2
*To those that applied and received banks loans only
As table 4.16 presents, 67.4 percent of survey respondents indicated that bank loans
criteria were not easy to meet. Those who said it was easy constitute 32.6 percent.
Table 4.16 Simplicity of bank loans criteria*

Simplicity of bank loans criteria Frequency Percent
Yes 29 32.6
No 60 67.4
Total 89 100.0
*To those that applied and received bank loans only
About 52.8 percent of survey respondents that had access to bank loans had received
adequate funds from banks. The balance indicated that bank loans were inadequate for
financing of operating activities as well as for investing activities (table 4.17).
66
Table 4.17 Adequacy of bank loans *

Adequacy of bank loans Frequency Percent
Yes 47 52.8
No 42 47.2
Total 89 100.0
Table 4.18 presents that bank loans were most commonly used for financing operating
activities (83.1 percent). Despite the common belief that bank loans are typically used for
medium- (1 to 3 years) and short-term ( less than 1 year) financing requirements, a good
number of the survey respondents indicates that bank loans were also used to purchase of
long lived assets like business house and machinery (57.5 percent). It was also found that
SMEs used bank loans for the payment of previous loans (7.9 percent).
Table 4.18 Purposes of bank loans (multiple answers were possible)*

Purpose of bank loans Frequency Percent
Purchase of inputs/raw materials 69 83.1
Purchase of long lived assets 74 57.5
Payment of previous loans 7 7.9
others 1 1.1
Among the 89 SMEs which actually applied and received banks loans, 40.4 percent had
difficulties in paying back the loan while the remaining 59.6 percent did not face any
problem in paying back the borrowed funds (table 4.19).
67
Table 4.19 SMEs that face problems in paying back bank loans**
Loans back pay problems Frequency Percent
Yes 36 40.4
No 53 59.6
Total 89 100.0
Cash flow and liquidity problem (current assets are less than current liabilities) were
among the common problems encountered by SMEs. The two main mechanisms that
SMEs used to resolve such problems were borrowing from informal sources and
postpone the payment date. Use of informal source of finance was widespread, for
instance, 43.4 percent of survey respondents used iqubs, friends and relatives as means of
mitigating liquidity problem.
About 89.2 percent of survey respondents had access such as saving and payment
facilities to other than loans while 8.7 percent and 2 percent had received third party
(trustee) asset management and ongoing business monitoring services respectively. The
rest was for those which have no access to bank additional products and services (table
4.20).
68
Table 4.20 Additional services offered by banks*

Bank additional services Frequency Percent
No 14 9.4
Regular control of business 3 2.0
Third party asset management (trustee) 13 8.7
Savings and payments 119 79.7
Total 149 100.0
According to table 4.21, 83.2 percent survey respondents indicates that banks had no
special products/services to SMEs while the rest 14.8 percent said that banks sometimes
provided special loan reschedule services.
Table 4.21 Special products and services offered by banks*

Bank special products and services Frequency Percent
No special services 124 83.2
Reschedule loans 22 14.8
Provide the necessary skills and counseling 1 .7
Factoring/discounting 1 .7
Total 149 100.0
69
4.1.1.3. Role of MFIs in the growth of SMEs
The prospective of microfinance is to broaden access to financial services for lower-
income levels and increases the amount of undertaken productive projects. By inclusion
into the financial sector, improved income-generation is predicted. MFIs are supposed to
be different from other financial institutions in that they are believed (and particularly
established) to serve the microfinance needs of those who are underserved by banks.
Several parameters can be used to assess the extent to which MFIs are actually doing this.
These include accessibility, criteria used to offer loan, package of services delivered,
adequacy of loan amount, and appropriateness of the loan duration and timeliness of
disbursement.
According to the data presented in table 4.22, 53 percent of survey respondents had
access to and receive financial resources from MFIs. Accessing credit is considered to be
an important factor in increasing the development of SMEs.
Table 4.22 Access to MFIs loans

Accessibility of microfinance institution loans Frequency Percent
Yes 79 53.0
No 70 47.0
Total 149 100.0
70
About 55.7 percent of survey respondents that had access to MFIs credit received loans
with a maturity period of more than one year while the remaining 44.3 percent had
borrowed money with a maturity period of less than one year (table 4.23).
Table 4.23 MFIs loan maturity periods*

MFIs loan maturity periods Frequency Percent
less than 1 year 35 44.3
1-5 years 44 55.7
More than 5 years 0 0
Total 79 100.0
*To those that applied and received MFIs loans only
One more prominent result depicts that 88.6 percent of survey respondents said that
MF’s' loans criteria were easy to meet. Those who said it was not easy represented 11.4
percent (table 4.24).
Table 4.24 Simplicity of MFIs loans criteria*

Simplicity of MFIs loan criteria Frequency Percent
Yes 70 88.6
No 9 11.4
Total 79 100.0
Some MFIs failed to provide credit to SMEs. The most frequently mentioned reasons
were: enterprises business size was beyond the target for MFIs credit facilities; SMEs
71
were unaware to MFIs loan facilities; difficulty to form a group which is a requirement
for MFIs loans, and no MFIs were operates in the area (70 percent). Other reasons were
also given by survey respondents such as inadequate collateral, high borrowing cost and
fear of in ability to repay and difficulty of the process (table 4.25).
Table 4.25 Reasons for not having access to MFIs loans*

Reasons for not having access to MFIs loans Frequency Percent
Inadequate collateral, high borrowing cost 3 4.3
Inadequate collateral, process to difficult 5 7.1
Inadequate collateral, fear of inability to repay, process to difficult 6 8.6
Inadequate collateral, high borrowing cost, process to difficult 7 10.0
Others: business size beyond the target for MFIs credit facilities; not
aware of MFIs loan facilities 49 70.0
Total 70 100.0
*To those that have no access to MFIs loans only
Table 4.26 shows 57 percent of survey respondents indicate that collateral and permanent
working places in a specified kebele2 were the criteria to receive loans. Another 40.5
percent said that business plan, previous loans records, current business status and the
repayment ability of the enterprises in combination with the above mentioned securities
were also considered as criteria to given out loans.
2
Specific address that firms located/operated
72
Table 4.26 MFIs loans criteria’s*

MFIs loans criteria’s Frequency Percent
Business plan, permanent working places 2 2.5
Collateral, business plan, permanent working places, and others 32 40.5
Collateral and permanent working places 45 57.0
Total 79 100.0
About 84.8 percent of survey respondents had received inadequate fund (i.e. MFIs are far
from meeting the loan requirements of their clients). The rest was for those who had
received adequate funds (table 4.27).
Table 4.27 Adequacy of MFIs loans*

Adequacy of MFIs loans Frequency Percent
Yes 12 15.2
No 67 84.8
Total 79 100.0
In terms of loans purposes, about 97.5 percent of survey respondents indicated that MFIs
loans were most commonly used for the purchase of inputs/raw materials while 31.6
percent and 22.8 percent said that they were used to purchase long lived assets like
business house, machinery and payment of previous loans respectively (table 4.28).
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Table 4. 28 Purposes of MFIs loans (multiple answers were possible)*

Purpose of MFIs loans Frequency Percent
Purchase of inputs/raw materials 77 97.5
Purchase of long lived assets 25 31.6
Payment of previous loans 18 22.8
Others 0 0
According to the data presented in table 4.29, among 79 SMEs that actually received
MFIs loans, 16.2 percent had problems in paying back their loans. The rest 83.8 percent
did not have any problem in paying back the loans. Inflexibility of loan period in
accordance with the working condition of SMEs, failure of the business venture and
market conditions were among the problems encountered by SMEs. Sometimes, MFIs
had provided some remedies to SMEs to tackle such problems such as postpone payment
date instead of forcing for immediate payment, refinancing future potential projects, and
make constant supervision of business activities.
Table 4.29 SMEs that face problems in paying back the MFIs loans*
Loans pay back problems Frequency Percent
Yes 12 16.2
No 67 83.8
Total 79 100.0
* To those that applied and received MFIs loans only
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Survey respondents were also asked about the additional product/services apart from
financial services offered by MFIs. In this regard, 17.4 percent of the respondents
indicated that MFIs help them in setting up their business plans and control their business
activities. About 15.4 percent indicated that saving, insurance and asset management
were additional products/services provided by MFIs. The remaining 64.4 percent
complained that MFIs had no additional products/services (table 4.30).
Table 4.30 MFIs additional services*

MFIs additional services Frequency Percent
No 96 64.4
Third party asset management (trustee) 4 2.7

Savings, Third party asset management (trustee) insurance 23 15.4
Set business plans, monitoring and supervision, training 26 17.4
Total 149 100.0
Survey respondents were also asked to identify and rank the sources they normally use to
meet their finance needs for working capital and medium & long term investment
separately. The results are given in tables 4.31 and 4.32 respectively. It can be observed
that own savings/retained earnings were rated as the single most important source of
finance both for working capital and medium & long term investment.
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Table 4.31. Source of finance to meet working capital needs*

Source of finance
1st 2nd 3rd
Own saving /Retained earning 39 28 3
Borrowing from banks 11 28.5 19
Borrowing from MFIs 22 12.8 18.8
Governmental advice 0 5 11.4
Borrowing from relatives, iqub, associations 28 25.5 27.5
Despite this, banks and MFIs also provided financial resources to finance working capital
and investment needs. MFIs were primarily providing short-term loans. However, bank
loans were good for financing investment needs.
Table 4.32 Source of finance for medium and long term investment*
Source of finance
1st 2nd 3rd
Own saving /Retained earning 45 39.5 11.5
Borrowing from banks 19 13.8 19.2
Borrowing from MFIs 12 8.4 17.4
Governmental advice 1 0 0
Borrowing from relatives, iqub, associations 24 23 10
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4.1.2. In-depth interview Results
In addition to survey of SMEs managers and/or owners and sales persons, the researcher
conducted in-depth interview with bank and MFIs’ managers and/or officials. The
outcomes of the in-depth interviews are presented in two sections. The first section shows
banks’ products and services package available to SMEs while the second section
presents MFIs’ products and services package provided to SMEs.
4.1.2.1. Bank products and services
In depth-interviews were conducted with bank officials and /or managers. According to
the outcomes of the interviews, banks offer financial as well as non financial products
and services to SMEs. The first important service of banks was mobilizing deposits from
the public and business community. Depending upon the nature of deposits
(current/demand deposit, saving deposit, fixed deposit, recurring deposit, miscellaneous
deposits), funds deposited with banks also earn interest. Thus, deposits with the banks
grow along with the interest earned.
The second important function of banks was grant loans and advances. Such loans and
advances are given to fulfill the financing requirement of the business community. The
rate of interest charged on loans and advances varies depending upon the purpose, period
and the mode of repayment. The borrower may withdraw and repaid the entire amount in
lump sum or in installments. An advance is a credit facility provided by the bank to its
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customers. It differs from loan in the sense that loans may be granted for longer period,
but advances are normally granted for a short period of time. Further the purpose of
granting advances was to meet the day to day requirements of business.
Besides the primary functions of accepting deposits and lending money, banks were
performing a number of secondary functions. These include: issuing letters of credit,
demand drafts and pay orders, transferring money from one place to another, and other
transactional products such as currency alteration, liquidity, quantity divisibility, and
maturity flexibility and collecting and supplying business information.
Apart from these two main activities, banks were also rendering a number of auxiliary
services. These services supplement the main activities of the banks. They broadly fall
under two categories: agency services and general utility services. Agency services are
those services which were rendered by banks as agents of their customers. They include:
collection and payment of money, and payment of checks and bills on behalf of the
customers, if so instructed; acting as a trustee or executor; acting as agents or
correspondents on behalf of customers for other banks and financial institutions at home
and abroad. General utility services are those services which are rendered by banks not
only to the customers but also to the general public. These are available to the public on
payment of a fee or charge. They include: safe-keeping of valuables in safe deposit
locker; supplying trade information and statistical data useful to customers; and acting as
a referee regarding the financial status of customers.
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Regarding the mode of financial assistance, the outcomes of interviews with bank
managers/officials reveals that banks offer short term financial assistance by way of short
term loans, cash credit, and overdraft facility. A cash credit is an arrangement whereby
the bank agrees to lend money to the borrower up to a certain limit. The amount is
credited to the account of the customer. The borrower draws the money as and when they
needs.
Apart from granting cash credit and short term loans, banks also grant short term
financial assistance by overdraft facility. Overdraft facility is the result of an agreement
with the bank by which a current account holder is allowed to withdraw a specified
amount over and above the credit balance in their account. This facility is made available
to current account holders who operate their account through checks. The customer is
permitted to withdraw the amount as and when they need it and to repay it through
deposits in their account as and when it is convenient to them. By granting these short
term financial assistances, banks help the business community in financing working
capital.
In addition to the above short term financial assistances, the outcomes revealed that banks
grant intermediate and long term loans. Bank term loans (both lump sum and
installments) had been the main mode of finance for medium and long term financing
requirement of SMEs during the preceding few years. This is in line with the traditionally
important role of commercial banks.
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4.1.2.2. Microfinance institutions’ products and services
In depth-interviews were also conducted with MFIs officials and/or managers. The
outcomes of the interviews regarding the MFIs products and services show that MFIs
also provide financial as well as non financial services. MFIs typically provide variety
financial services (loans, savings, cash management, insurance, and payment facilities)
which are crucial for SMEs growth.
Loans provided by MFIs that were available to SMEs are term loans and installment
loans. The Loan term and size was depending on the purpose of the loan, the capacity of
the borrower to pay the loan, and the lending capacity of the institution.
Savings and saving mobilization are other financial services provided by MFIs. MFIs
provide two types of savings products: voluntary and compulsory saving facilities.
Compulsory saving may have an advantage of developing saving culture among
borrowers and used as collateral for loan. Enterprises were also used this savings as one
of the instruments for arrears settlement. Cash collections, savings mobilization activities,
and loan disbursements were made both at center or branches level.
MFIs also provided some supplementary services to SMEs such as accepting contracting
document (between SMEs and their customers) for granting loans, refinancing future
potential SMEs projects, and act as trustee.
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Apart from financial services, MFIs also provide non-financial services to SMEs. The
major non-financial services include setting up business plans, counseling, marketing,
bookkeeping, monitoring, and experience sharing among clients. Business development
training about marketing, record keeping, and pricing was delivered for every client.
Association of Ethiopian Microfinance Institutions also provides experience-sharing
forums by preparing workshops, panels, and publicizing bulletin, occasional thesis s and
other materials.
4.1.3. Documentary analysis – regression estimates
Finally, role of financial institutions in the growth of SMEs has been examined by
estimating linear regression model. The data for this section was collected from different
documents kept by SMEs coupled with survey. The mean loan value of SME along with
the control variables for five years has been regressed against mean values of growth
variable i.e. sales of each SME. Table 4.33 and 4.34 shows the result of descriptive
statistics and regression model respectively.
Table 4. 33 Descriptive Statistics

Variables Mean Median Maximum Minimum SD
Sales 371497.1 208845.0 4837954.2 11200.00 493244.7
Debt 181302.1 104121.8 2771323. 6784.000 231114.2
Employment 11.00000 10.00000 41.00000 1.000000 6.976010
Age 6.840268 7.000000 27.00000 3.000000 4.254029
Internationalization 0.028591 0.000000 1.000000 0.000000 0.165916
Source: E views results
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It was used annual sales as a measure of firm growth as dependent variable and measured
by the growth rate in percentage terms. Sales growth is significantly influenced by the
following set of variables: external finance (percentage change in total borrowed capital
from bank and MFIs), firm size (percentage change in employees), age of firms, and
internationalization (dummy variable that equals 1 if SME have export strategy and 0
otherwise).
Table 4.34 Regression results

Dependent Variable: Percentage change in Sales
Method: Panel Least Squares
Sample (adjusted): 2005/6 2009/10
Cross-sections included: 149
Variable Coefficient t-Statistic Prob.
Constant 35.46062 0.169297 0.8656

Percentage change in debt 0.449794 16.86151 0.0000
Percentage change in employment 0.445895 2.171338 0.0304
Age 2.412629 0.020923 0.9833
Internationalization 31.43836 2.732537 0.0065
R-squared 0.617728 Mean dependent var 83.48759

Adjusted R-squared 0.483064 S.D. dependent var 263.5878
F-statistic 4.587179 Hannan-Quinn criter. 13.99430
Prob.(F-statistic) 0.000000 Durbin-Watson stat 2.027297
Source: E views results
To ensure the statistical adequacy of the model (to satisfy the assumption of classical
linear regression model), diagnostic tests were performed and violations were also
detected. The adjusted R2 value indicates that 48 percent of the total variability of growth
(percentage change in sales) about their mean value was explained by the model. For a
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cross sectional regression, this is fairly high (Brooks, 2008). The Durbin-Watson
statistics of 2.03 indicating no evidence for autocorrelation between the independent
variables of the regressions model (Brooks, 2008).
This chapter has separately presented the results of different methods adopted.
Specifically, the results of survey of SMEs, documentary analysis (documents held by
SMEs), and in-depth interviews with banks and MFIs managers/officials. In order to
address the research problems and achieve research objective, the results of the different
data collection methods were jointly analyzed. The analyses were based on the results
obtained and literature guide. The next section, presents the analysis of each of these
methods of inquiry to address each of the research questions and hypothesis.
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4.2. Data analysis
The purpose of this section is to address each research questions and hypothesis in
achieving the overall objective of the study using data presented in the preceding section.
Hence, the results obtained under different methods are jointly analyzed to address each
research questions and hypothesis.
4.2.1. Research question (RQ1)
What roles do financial institutions, specifically banks and MFIs, play in SMEs
growth?
Data obtained from SMEs survey and in-depth interview with financial institution
managers/ officials was used to address this research question.
As noted in chapter two, a well-developed financial institution allows the firms to have
access to financial services as well as non financial services, which they are often denied
(Amina, 2009). The efficiency of the process through which resources are channeled into
productive activities is crucial for growth. Banks and MFIs are one part of this process.
Banks, as Allen and Gale (2008) noted, have historically been viewed as playing a good
role in firm’s growth for two reasons. One is that they perform a critical role in
facilitating payments. The other is that they have long played an important role in
channeling credit to households and businesses. Commercial banks, as well as other
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intermediaries, provide services in screening and monitoring borrowers; and by
developing expertise as well as diversifying across many borrowers, banks reduce the
costs of supplying credit. Thus, in their role as lenders, banks are often not merely buying
someone's debt; rather, they are providing significant financial services associated with
extending credit to their customers. And to the extent that investors want to hold bank
liabilities, banks can fund borrowers directly.
Examination of the results in respect of roles of banks in the growth of SMEs showed the
following findings. Firstly, banks provided both short and long term financial resources
to SMEs for working capital as well as investment financing requirements. About 59.7
percent of SMEs had access to and received financial services from banks (table 4.11).
This seems to support the view that SMEs use banks as one source of finance (Hoshi,
1990). This enables the SMEs to finance urgently needed expenditures. As Edwards and
Fischer (1994) noted, borrowing from banks has many advantages to the business
community than other sources. First, finance is available for a definite period; hence it is
not a permanent burden. Second, banks keep the financial operations of their clients
secret. Third, banks do not interfere in the internal affairs of the borrowing concern;
hence the management retains the control of the company. As shown in table 4.18, 4.19,
4.31, and 4.32, banks finance a significant proportion of companies’ investment needs
and also provided finance for working capital requirements.
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Secondly, it was also interesting that bank loans were used for the payment of previous
loans, which is in support of the refinancing role of financial institutions (table 4.18).
This means of financing is commonly used by firms when the cost of previous borrowed
funds is higher than the current interest rate (Edwards and Fischer, 1994).
Thirdly, SMEs typically received a variety of additional financial services that only banks
are well-positioned to provide. These include cash management, saving and payments,
and other transactional products i.e. currency alteration, liquidity, quantity divisibility,
and maturity flexibility (table 4.20).
Fourthly, besides providing financial resources, banks, as discussed in Allen and Gale
(2008), help SMEs growth through ameliorating information problems, ensuring proper
utilization of funds, provide inter temporal smoothing of risk, and standing guarantee on
behalf of its customers for making payments.
Generally, banks were helping the development of SMEs directly as well as indirectly.
First, banks allowed the SMEs to have financial services such as saving facilities,
payment instruments, credit and other transactional products. Second, the banking sector
also contributed to SME’s growth indirectly as Diamond (1984) noted, by reducing
monitoring and transactional costs associated with external finance, and improving risk
sharing through exchanges of risk among individuals at a given point in time.
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Apart from banks, MFIs were also proven effective in providing services to SMEs.
Securing financial services is the main target for the establishment MFIs. MFIs do not
only grant financial services but also provided them with some non financial services.
These non financial services are meant to feed the SME with the necessary business skills
to better run the venture (Ledgerwood, 1999).
MFIs are assets to the developing and transition countries (Ledgerwood, 1999). The
services they provide are tailored to meet the needs and aspirations of the local
inhabitants and emphases are towards the poor. The products and services put forth to the
community are not solutions by themselves to the numerous problems affecting the poor.
Instead, they only provide a plat-form for those who were considered not fit to meet bank
requirements. SMEs were very much affected by these constraints and MFIs are towards
bridging the gap. Microfinance is only a portion of what is needed to boost enterprises
which are incapable of getting the necessary assistance from commercial banks. They
develop new markets, increases income, create and accumulate assets and promote a
culture of entrepreneurship (Albaladejo, 2001).
Examination of the results in respect of role of MFIs in the growth of SMEs
demonstrated the following outcomes. Firstly, 53 percent of SMEs had access to and
received financial services from MFIs (table 4.22). It is believed that access to credit
enables SMEs to overcome their liquidity constraints and undertake some investments
such as the improvement of technological inputs thereby leading to an increase in
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production (Robinson, 2003).The financial services delivered by MFIs were lending and
savings. The types of loan provided by MFIs take two forms such as term loans and
installment loans. Loan term and size was depending on the purpose of the loan, the
capacity of the borrower to pay the loan, and the lending capacity of the institution. It is
thought that credit augment growth of SMEs.
MFIs also deliver voluntary and compulsory saving activities. Compulsory saving may
have an advantage of developing saving culture among SMEs. MFIs also attempt to
deliver demand-driven financial products that meet the need of clients in various
activities.
Secondly, apart from financial services, MFIs also provided non-financial services to
SMEs. The major non-financial services provided by MFIs were training, setting up
business plan and monitoring and supervisions, consulting services, and experience
sharing forums (table 4.30). Some MFIs provide enterprise development training in the
area of marketing, bookkeeping, and Social services. Social services such as health care,
education and literacy training that improve the ability of the low-income earners.
Sometimes MFIs also provides third party asset management (act as trustee), insurance
and other transactional facilities (table 4.30).
Thirdly, the deliveries of MFIs’ products and services had transaction cost consequences
in order to have greater outreach (Christabell, 2009). MFIs visit their clients instead of
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them to come to the institution thereby reducing the cost that clients may suffer from.
Microfinance clients admit that convenience is more important to them than return.
From the above discussion, one can deduce that financial institutions played different role
in different stages of SMEs development. At the founding stage, they were provided
startup capital and consulting in founding procedures. In the growth stage financial
institutions contributed significant services in consultancy in financial management
operation, lending short term working capital for mass production and inventory
management, and long term capital for expansion of business. Financial institutions were
also providing fund for expansion of production capacity, development of new products
and transformation of core business at the maturity and transformation stage.
What forms of financing are available in financing working capital as well as medium
& long-term loan requirements of SMEs?
Before one could set up any business venture, it needs a certain amount of capital,
whether the business venture falls under the small, medium or large scale category.
Firms’ financing can be broadly divided into internal and external funds. A firm can use
one of these two financing sources only or, as is more often the case in practice, a
mixture of them. Traditionally, internal funding, i.e. personal savings, retained profit and
sales of assets, is an important means of financing for SMEs. As Boot (2000) noted,
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investing personal savings maximizes the control of the entrepreneur keeps over the
business. It is also a strong signal of commitment to outside investors or providers of
funds.
External funding can be broadly divided into debt and equity. In practice, equity finance
is limited in Ethiopia (Ageba and Amha, 2006). With respect to this study, this section
investigates financial institutions’ forms of debt financing used to finance SMEs working
capital and investment needs.
There were varieties of sources of working capital finance for SMEs (Allen and Gregory,
2005). However, quite a number of SMEs survey respondents indicate that their main
sources of working capital were from personal savings (39 percent), and informal sources
like friends, relatives and iqub (28 percent). In addition, a significant number of SMEs
indicates that they were obtained loans from MFIs (22 percent) and banks (11percent) to
finance working capital. Poor performance was observed in respect of loans from
government agencies (table 4.31). This is an indication that most of financial institutions
were established to provide credit to the SMEs. The outcomes of interviews with bank
managers/officials revealed that bank credit was available in such forms. First, cash
credit, under this facility, the bank specifies a predetermined limit and the borrower were
allowed to withdraw funds from the bank up to that sanctioned credit limit. Second,
overdraft, under this arrangement, the borrower is allowed to withdraw funds in excess of
the actual credit balance in its current account up to a certain specified limit during a
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stipulated period. Third, short term loan, under this system, the total amount of borrowing
is credited to the current account of the borrower or released to the borrower in cash.
On the other hand, MFIs also grant working capital requirement in the form of term loans
and installment loans. MFIs provide its lending services using mostly the group-based
lending. However, cooperative and individual based lending methodologies were lately
introduced in the system. Group members are jointly responsible for the loan. They will
take the risk if one of a group member fails to repay the loan. The cooperative based loan
requires physical asset or capital as collateral. Similarly the individual loan requires
property or salary of permanent employees as collateral. Before taking the loan, all
clients are required to undertake a training or orientation.
There were also a lot of sources available for funding of SMEs investment needs. These
include among others personal savings, cooperative societies, government agencies,
financial institutions, and international donor agencies (Allen and Gregory, 2005).
Examination of the results revealed the following findings. Table 4.32 reveals that major
source of finance for investment needs of SMEs were personal saving (45 percent),
family and friends (24 percent), banking institutions (19 percent), and MFIs (12 percent).
As Ageba and Amha (2006) discussed owner’s savings and family and friends were still
constitute a major source of financing for both working capital and investment
requirements in Ethiopia. This was due to that informal loans take place among parties
with utmost good faith, making the transactional costs and collateral requirement low.
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Indeed, bank loans, cash credit and overdrafts and MFIs loans were not only used to
finance working capital but also investment needs. Beck et al (2004) also show that small
firms finance a smaller share of their investment with formal sources of external finance.
From the above discussion, even though personal savings and informal sources are the
major forms of finance, banks and MFIs also played greater roles in financing working
capital and investment requirements of SMEs. As the results presented in table 4.14; table
4.18; table 4.23, and table 4.28, finance available from these financial institutions were
used to finance both day to day operating activities and investment needs. But the MFIs
finance for meeting working capital needs was easily available to SMEs than bank
financial resources. This was because microfinance institution loans criteria were easy
and simple to fulfill. The view that requirement of collateral and loans criteria are
relatively simple in case of MFIs than banks is consistent with expectations since such
loans take place among parties with intimate knowledge, making the need for security (in
the form of asset collateral and guarantee) low (Ledgerwood, 1999).
4.2.3. Research Question (RQ3)
Are the financial institutions products and services, accessible and affordable for the
SMEs?
Several parameters were used in this study to assess the accessibility and affordability of
financial institutions, specifically banks and MFIs’ funds. These include criteria used to
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offer the loan, simplicity of loan criteria, adequacy of loan amount being provided, and
timeliness of disbursement.
As Olu (2009) noted, loans that are inadequate to finance the intended activity are likely
to be diverted into uses with lower outlays, more so in case of borrowers lacking own
funds to fill the gap. Again rapid disbursal of funds allows borrowers to grasp immediate
opportunities. Similarly, a mismatch of the maturity period (hence the repayment
cycle/frequency) with the gestation period of the activity financed by the loan may lead to
delinquency and/or client desertion. The transaction costs also affect the accessibility and
affordability of funds such as cost of forming a group, cost of negotiating with the lender,
cost of filling thesis work, transportation to and from the financial institution, cost of
time spent on project appraisal and cost of attending meetings (Ledgerwood, 1999).
Examination of results in respect to accessibility and affordability revealed the following
outcomes. Firstly, about 40.3 percent of SMEs survey respondents indicate that the bank
loans were inaccessible and unaffordable (table 4.11). The possible explanations for
inaccessibility and unaffordability of bank loans as presented in table 4.12. First it may be
considered as discouraging potential borrowers (i.e. firms that need credit but were
discouraged from applying by perceived or real high collateral requirement (76.7
percent), difficulty of processes involved and worsen terms and conditions (75 percent),
high cost of borrowing (18.3 percent), or fear of repayment ability (51.7 percent)).
Second it may be considered as uninformed i.e. not aware of the facility, or where and
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how to apply (11.7 percent). About 47.2 percent indicates that bank loans were
inadequate for financing of operating activities as well as for investing activities (table
4.17).
Regarding the MFIs, 47 percent of survey respondents indicate that the MFI loans were
inaccessible and unaffordable. Table 4.25 clearly shows the most frequently mentioned
reasons such as respondent’s business size were beyond the target for MFIs credit
facilities; respondents were not aware of MFIs loan facilities; difficulty to form a group
which is a requirement for MFIs loans, and no MFIs operates in the area (70 percent).
Other reasons were also including inadequate collateral, high borrowing cost and fears of
in ability to repay, and difficulty of the process to be given a loan.
Secondly, securing financial resources was also determined by the stage or level of
business development. Businesses that are viewed as growing had it easy to get a loan
(Beck, et al, 2004). But in the context of Ethiopia, as outcomes of interviews with bank
managers and/or officials reveals that the main criteria to offer loans were the ability to
pay back and to meet the established requirements. Due to this about 67.4 percent of
SMEs find it hard to meet to be given bank loans (table 4.16).
How do financial institutions address the problems that SMEs face in the process of
accessing and settling loans?
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In Ethiopia, the potential sources of finance include banks, MFIs, cooperatives,
government projects, semi-formal & informal lenders, as well as trade credit (Ageba and
Ahma, 2006). But, having access to some of the sources was a major constraint to SMEs.
High collateral and transactional costs, inadequate supply of finance, forms of finance,
liquidity, and long and difficult application process were some of the problems that SMEs
face in accessing funds. Information asymmetry between loan provider and loan receiver
was also other constraints that hindering SMEs growth.
Finance helps firms overcome liquidity constraints and thus improve resource allocation
in the economy (Rajan and Zingales, 1998). Allen and Gregory (2005) noted the higher
financing obstacles that SMEs report match not only anecdotal evidence from both
developed and developing countries; they also confirm theory’s predictions. In a world
with fixed transaction costs and information asymmetries, small firms with demand for
smaller loans face higher transaction costs and face higher risk premiums since they are
typically more opaque and have less collateral to offer. (Beck et al (2004) finds that the
higher financing obstacles faced by SMEs indeed translates into slower growth.
There were many reasons why the SMEs do not have access to financial services;
specifically there were two important problems. First, the smaller firm has no collateral.
Second, dealing with small transactions was costly to financial institutions. Financial
institutions, specifically banks and MFIs, addressed some of the constraints that SMEs
face in accessing funds. First, MFIs tried to overcome these two constraints in many
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ways: Group lending, cooperative, and individual based lending schemes. These were
improving repayment incentives and transactional costs, and also build support networks
and educate borrowers. These alternative collateral and credit facilities will prominently
enhance SMEs growth by ways of easing SMEs’ financing constraints and on increasing
their access to formal sources of external finance (Christabell, 2009).
Second, to mitigate financial distress that comes from the mismatching of cash inflows
and out flows (loan maturity period), financial institutions were flexing loan terms and
conditions/requirements and postpone the payment date. The more time a firms get, the
less likely the firm is to experience problems of meeting short-term obligations. Thus, the
probability that a firm will avoid financial distress can be enhanced through flexing and
postpone payment date (Waterfield and Duval, 1996).
Third, financial institutions, specifically MFIs, were provided consultancy and training to
equip SMEs in the area of business skills, book keeping, production, and financial
management. As noted in Kayanula and Quartey (2000) training will enhance skills of
employees’, flexibility in managing the operations, and reduce costs.
Fourth, financial institutions were ameliorated the information problems through their
monitoring effort and supply of valuable information. Credit availability to enterprises,
but especially to SMEs, depends on the infrastructure that supports financial transactions,
including the legal system and the information environment. Commercial laws that
effectively assign and protect property rights and their efficient enforcement are crucial
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for financial transactions (Beck et al., 2004). Allen and Gale (2008) have also shown the
positive effect that information has on credit availability to SMEs.
4.2.5. Hypothesis (H)
As pointed out in chapter three, the hypothesis formulated for the purpose of this research
work would be tested using the statistical technique. The research hypothesis states that:
growth.
H1: Loan from financial institutions, banks and MFIs, contributes significantly
to SMEs growth.
To test this hypothesis, data was obtained from the document analysis coupled with
survey. Table 4.33 shows the result of regression model in which the role of financial
institutions on growth measures has been explained. The regression result reveals that
there was change in the level of SMEs sales (i.e. growth of SMEs) as a result of change in
level of financing by financial institutions. The coefficient of debt from financial
institutions was 0.45. Specifically, if financial institutions loans rise by 1percent, growth
(sales of SMEs) will be expected to rise on average by 0.45 percent. Furthermore, the p-
value (p-value =0.0000) of change in debt (loan from banks and MFIs) was positive and
statistically significant at 1 percent. The positive coefficient of debt indicates that a
positive relationship between the SMEs growth and debt i.e. sales and external finance.
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As noted in Levine (2005) financial institutions potentially shape key aspects of firm
dynamics, such as size and growth, and thus industry productivity and growth. The
impact across firms of financial institutions is most likely heterogeneous as firms differ in
their need of external finance. The actual sign of the coefficients was compared with their
expected sign, given in chapter three. This empirical evidence is consistent with the
theory of development of financial institutions having significant effect on the firm’s
growth and size (Rajan and Zingales, 1998; Demirguc¸- Kunt and Maksimovic’s, 1998);
and Levine, 2005).
As stated in Brooks (2008), another way to evaluate an econometric model is to
determine whether it is consistent with theory. In this instance, according to Levine
(2005), in a well functioning financial system, financial institutions potentially shape key
aspects of firm dynamics, such as size and growth. Rajan and Zingales (1998) also
argued that well-developed financial institutions help firms to overcome problems of
moral hazard and adverse selection, thus reducing the firm’s cost of raising money from
outsiders. Thus, financial institutions could generate an overall positive effect on firm’s
growth that is comprised of a range of effects across firms.
Apart from debt, other independent variables like average size (percentage change in
employees), internationalization (dummy variable that equals 1 if SME have export
strategy and 0 otherwise) and natural logarithm of age were used in the regression model.
Firm’s size (p-value =0.0304) and internationalization (p-value =0.0065) were
98
statistically significant at 5 percent or lower while the regression F-statistic do not
support the null hypothesis that all coefficient values on explanatory variables are zero.
This phenomenon confirms with Esra (2003) the notation that size (percentage change in
employees) and internationalization (dummy variable that equals 1 if SME have export
strategy and 0 otherwise) were strongly affected the growth measures i.e. change of sales.
As discussed in Esra (2003) export strategy is the main foreign-market entry mode used
by business enterprises in their internationalization efforts, because it can be expected
that firms, active in export trade, may be relatively more capable of increasing their sales.
Size of firms was also affect sales, because it can be expected that the larger firms grow
faster than smaller ones due to their ability to employ high skilled, skillful managers and
workers and to achieve more efficient product facilities (Ardishvili, et al., 1998).
However, age of the SMEs was not found to be statistically significantly affecting the
SMEs growth. This is the views that younger firms would grow rapidly than older firms
due to innovative ideas and dynamic management.
In general, the discussions in this chapter endeavored to integrate the results of the
quantitative and qualitative methods so as to address the research questions and
hypothesis and achieve the research objective. The next chapter presents the summary
and conclusions of major findings and highlight implications and future research
directions.
99
Chapter Five
Conclusions
The purpose of this last chapter is to summarize the whole thesis and highlight
implications and future research directions. Accordingly, section one presents an
overview of the thesis and its major findings. The second section discusses the
implications to the policy makers and financial institutions. Finally, the limitations and
future research directions are presented in section three.
5.1. Overview of the thesis and its major findings
The thesis began with an elaboration of financial institutions role in general and to SMEs
in particular. It was noted that access to financial institutions products and services is a
crucial element for the development of SMEs. Thus their sustainable growth will largely
depend on the capacity of financial institutions to mobilize resources from low valued to
high valued and invest in SMEs activities.
The thesis reviewed literature on the theoretical recognition and empirical evidence of the
role of financial institutions in enterprises growth, particularly in SMEs growth. The
review highlighted overall role of financial institutions. This shows the various roles that
financial institutions, particularly, banks and MFIs, play in the development of SMEs.
100
Chapter 5 Conclusions
With regard to banks, the literature review revealed the banks role in ameliorating
information problems and monitoring investments, inter-temporal smoothing of risk,
corporate governance, and financing working capital and investment requirements.
In respect of MFIs, the literature review showed that MFIs were established to fill the gap
existed between commercial banks and poor or small business entrepreneurs and then
increased the amount of undertaken productive projects. Apart from this the review
revealed MFIs products and services package available to enterprises such as financial
services, social intermediation or non financial services and enterprises development
services.
Further, the literature review showed the nature and importance of SMEs in economic
development and employment. The review indicated the different definition of SMEs
across nation and business categories. Concerning the definition it was pointed out that
there is no single demarcation line to categorize enterprises as micro, small, medium and
large. Even though every nation has different definition, SMEs play important role in its
economic activities. In Ethiopia, their role is considered even more importance in
achieving sustainable economic development. And also the review revealed growth
indicators/measures and then, sales as the best growth measure.
Apart from nature and importance of SMEs, the literature review highlighted the general
constraints to SMEs growth. The review showed the input, output, regulation and
management constraints.
101
The review of empirical evidence revealed that in spite of their limitedness, financial
institutions potentially shape key aspects of firm dynamics, such as size and growth, and
then economic growth. Further, in the empirical evidence it was indicated that the
previous studies merely focused on access to finance and challenges of SMEs, but other
than financing role appeared to be unknown. Finally, in the context of Ethiopia, there is
no reliable and comprehensive study to examine the role of financial institutions in SMEs
growth. These gaps in the literature led to the current research questions:
What roles do financial institutions, specifically banks and MFIs, play in SMEs
growth? Are the financial institutions products and services, accessible and
affordable for the SMEs? How do financial institutions address the problems that
SMEs face in the process of accessing and settling loans?
It was discussed that depending on the quest for the solution of a problem and research
philosophy, a research method would be based on quantitative, qualitative or mixed
approach. The thesis examined the three common research approaches features. In
general, it was noted that the use of a single methods in assessing a given phenomenon is
likely to yield limited outcomes. So, the current study combined both qualitative and
quantitative research approaches to get the benefit of a mixed method approach. While
the quantitative aspect were survey and documentary analysis (quantitative/qualitative
data), the qualitative aspect employed in-depth interviews with banks and MFIs
managers/officials. With respect to survey, semi-structured questionnaire was distributed
102
among randomly selected SMEs in Addis Ababa and a response rate 87.6 percent was
achieved. The survey instrument contained both open and close ended questions.
Documentary studies also conducted simultaneously with actual conduct of survey to
obtain information that may not be obtained through survey. On the other hand, in-depth
interviews with banks and MFIs managers/officials were conducted at different time in
their home office in order to have some clarifications on the issues that were raised.
The results of survey coupled with data obtained from documents held by SMEs and in-
depth interviews with banks and MFIs managers /officials were jointly used in analyzing
role of financial institutions in SMEs growth. In general, the results and analysis reflect
the following major findings.
Financial institution has shown an encouraging growth in its growth and outreach. The
number of borrowers, average loan size has increased in a remarkable way. However,
SMEs has a serious hindrance in gaining access to products and services from financial
institutions, particularly from banks. Inadequate collateral, difficulty of processes, fear of
inability to repay, and high borrowing cost were frequently mentioned reasons by SMEs
for inaccessibility of banks products and services.
Even though they had limited access to banks financial resources, SMEs were received
both short term and long term loans. Thus SMEs were used banks as one source of
financing either for working capital or investment requirements. Not surprisingly, bank
loans were also used not only for operation requirement but also for settlement of
103
previous loans. Similarly, banks were typically provided a variety of additional financial
services such as cash management, saving and payment, and other transactional products.
Besides providing financial services, banks were help SMEs growth through ameliorating
information asymmetry, inter temporal smoothing of risks, and by ensuring proper
utilizations of funds. However such contributions of financial as well as non financial
services were found to be by far lower than the SMEs demand.
Concerning with banks products and services, the result of in depth interviews with banks
managers and officials revealed that banks also rendering a number of auxiliary services
such as agency and general utility services.
Regards the forms of financial assistance, banks offered short term loans, cash credit, and
over draft facility to finance SMEs working capital requirements. Similarly, banks also
offered medium and long term financial assistance by way of term loans. This is in line
with the traditional role of commercial banks. In general, although limited provision of
banks products and services, banks help the SMEs development and growth.
Apart from banks, MFIs played significant role in SMEs development process. In the
context of Ethiopia, MFIs were established to broaden access to financial services for
poor and small enterprises. MFIs provided both term loan and installment loans. It was
shown that access to MFIs enabled SMEs, particularly small enterprises that are
underserved by banks, to overcome financing constraints and thereby accelerating their
104
growth rate. Despite their importance in SMEs growth, MFIs still provided inadequate
financial access to finance SMEs working capital as well as investment needs.
In addition, MFIs typically provided a variety of additional financial services include:
cash management, saving and payment, third party asset management (trustee) and
insurance. Besides providing financial services, MFIs also provided social
intermediation, non financial services, and enterprise development services. However,
some MFIs failed to provide such products and services. The most frequently mentioned
reasons are low lending capacity, business size were beyond the target, inadequate funds,
and high borrowing cost. However, the social benefits that gained by clients of MFIs
supersede the high borrowing cost.
In addition, MFIs also support the development of SMEs through training in book
keeping and manpower development, business control and monitoring, and by providing
available business as well as others relevant information.
Further, financial institutions addressed some of the problems that SMEs face in the
process of accessing and settling of loans. Sometimes banks flexing loan terms and
conditions/requirements to enhance SMEs access to banks financial resources and
postponed loan maturity period to overcome SMEs financial distress. Similarly, MFIs
used alternative collateral and credit facilities to address financing constraints and
postpone loan maturity period and refinancing future potential projects to overcome loan
settlement problems.
105
Finally, with respect to the relationship between SMEs growth and loans from financial
institutions, banks and MFIs, the result of regression analysis showed that there was
positive statistically significant relationship between them. That is, SMEs growth had
increased when the level of financial resources from financial institutions was increased.
5.2. The implications of these findings
The goal of financial institutions is to support the competitiveness and long-term growth
of enterprises, and then the economic development of a country. This will be
accomplished through support for enhancing the private delivery of services. In this
context the following five main measures were suggested to the financial institutions and
policy makers.
1. Creation of a level playing field: In order to promote the development and
growth of SMEs the institutional biases should be reduced so as to include the
small business into the system. This will enable them to get access to the financial
institutions especially banks’, products and services.
2. Lowering transactional costs of business: To the extent that it is practical,
financial institutions’ programs should lower financial and economic transaction
costs. It is recognized that the fixed costs of doing business are less easily
absorbed by smaller firms than by large ones. Therefore, actions to reduce
bureaucratic procedures, enhance access to credit, eliminate unnecessary
106
requirements, and expand the availability services will benefit SMEs to a greater
degree.
3. Targeted programs: Eliminating institutional biases and lowering transactions
costs are necessary, but not sufficient steps to promote SMEs. In cases where
SMEs do not have access to the necessary inputs because of the failure of the
market to provide them, the Banks and MFIs can promote the provision of
services and information that fill these gaps.
4. It is necessary to reappraise the role of commercial banks in Ethiopia, which
have been the traditional intermediaries between saving households and investing
firms. These may include asset management, fee based services, enterprises
development services. The move away should be encouraged by regulators.
5. Financial institutions should develop wide range financial as well as non financial
products/services to the needs of SMEs.
5.3. Limitations and further research directions
As a research this thesis is not without limitations and exhaustive. Thus, this section
briefly discuses these limitations and also indicates possible future research directions.
One of the limitations of this thesis is inadequacy of time and scarcity of money so as to
carry out a thorough/ detailed research including all the states/regions in the country.
The focus of the thesis on single segment of the economy i.e. SME is another limitation.
Further, the thesis also ignores other functions of financial institutions for large
107
enterprises and economic growth. From this it was apparent that such issues as role of
financial institutions on other segments of the economy were not examined. Finally, this
research thesis was not being entirely about SMEs instead, it only investigate the
contribution of financial institutions for the growth of SMEs.
These limitations lead to possible future research directions. This thesis only focused on
role of financial institution in SMEs growth. So, overall funding arrangement for SMEs
sector in Ethiopia is remain unknown. Investigating the role of financial institutions in
large enterprises and economic growth provides another area of future research.
108
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Appendix 1 - SMEs survey instrument (English version)
Addis Ababa University

School of Business and Public Administration
Department of Accounting and Finance
Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s) survey questionnaire
Dear Participant
This project is entitled “Role of financial institutions in the growth of small and
medium enterprises in Addis Ababa”. The investigator is Dereje Workie who is
currently an MSc (in accounting and finance) student at the Addis Ababa University.
The aim of this project is to investigate the long run relationship between financial
institutions and Small and Medium Enterprises growth in Ethiopia, particularly in Addis
Ababa city. To supplement the data obtained from selected banks and microfinance
institutions by means of face-to-face interviews, the investigator seeks to gather relevant
information from randomly selected SMEs in Addis Ababa using a self administered
questionnaire.
Participation in this project is completely voluntary. Survey results will be recorded

anonymously and strict confidentiality will be maintained. Individual responses will not
be identified in the investigator’s MSc thesis.
For further information, please cont act Dereje Workie by the following address:
Tel.: +251 913 55 33 89
E mail: [email protected]
115
Appendix 1 SMEs survey instrument (English version)
Section I: Background
1. What is your level of education?
Diploma 1
Bachelor degree 2
Masters or above 3
Others 4, Please specify………………………………………
2. What is your current position in the company
Manager 1
Owner/manager 2
Sales person 3
Others 4, Please specify……………………………………
3. How long have you been working in this position
Less than one year 1 5-10years 3
1-5 years 2 More than 10 years 4
4. What is your main business activity?
Manufacturing 1
Trade 2
Agriculture 3
Services 4
Construction 5
Others 6, Please specify………………….…………..…..
5. Your business is:
Sole proprietorship 1
Partnership 2
Private Limited company 3
Others 4, Please specify…………….……………....
6. How long has your organization been in business?
Less than one year 1 5-10years 3
1-5 years 2 More than 10 years 4
116
7. How many employees (both permanent and temporary) work for your enterprise in
2009/10 fiscal year?
1-10 1 51-100 4
11-20 2 More than100 employees 5
21-50 3
8. Over the last 3 years how was the level of market competition in the area that your
business is engaged in
No competition 1 Strong competition 3
Moderate competition 2 Severe competition 4
9. Please indicate roughly the average sales of your business in 2009/10 fiscal year.
Birr 10,000 or less 1 Birr 100,001 – Birr 1,000,000 4
Birr 10,001 – Birr 50,000 2 Birr 1,000,001 or more 5
Birr 50,001 – Birr 100,000 3
10. Please indicate the average export to total sales ratio of your business in 2009/10 fiscal year.
1-10% 1 More than 50% 4
11-20% 2
21-50% 3 Unknown 5
Section II: Role of banks in Small and Medium Enterprises growth

11. Does your organization have access to financial resources from banks needed for developing
your business? Yes 1 No 2
12. If the answer for question No. 11 is No, what do you think the reasons for not having access
to financial resources (multiple answers are possible)?
Inadequate collateral 1
No need for credit 2
Fear of inability to repay 3
High borrowing cost 4
Process too difficult 5
Others 6, please specify…………………………
13. If the answer for question No. 11 is Yes, have you ever applied for a loan (“borrowed
capital”) to finance your business? Yes 1 No 2
117
14. If the answer for question No. 13 is Yes, what terms of credit (i.e. maturity period) involved
in relation to the most recent loan received from banks
0-1year 1 5-10years 3
1-5 years 2 More than10 years 4
15. What criteria do the banks use to offer loans (multiple answers are possible)?
Collateral 1 Others 4, Please
Business plan 2 specify…………………..
Third party guarantee 3
16. Are the criteria easy to be met? Yes 1 No 2
17. Do banks give adequate fund needed for your business? Yes 1 No 2
18. Loans received from banks are most commonly used for
Purchase of inputs/raw materials 1
Purchase of long lived assets (like machinery, business building) 2
Payment of previous loans 3
Others 4, please specify……..………………………………………….…....
19. Have you ever had any problems in paying back the loan? 1
Yes 2
No
20. If the answer for question No. 19 is yes, Please specify those problems
………………………………………………………………………………………………
21. If the answer for question No. 19 is yes, what has happened to resolve them (multiple
answers are possible)?
Restructuring 1
Post pone payment date 2
Removal of interest payment 3
Others 4, please specify………………………………
22. Apart from financial services offered by the banks, how do banks help you (multiple
answers are possible)
Set business plans and regular control of business 1
Saving and Payment services 2
Third parties asset management (trustee) 3
Insurance services 4
Others 5 please specify……………………………………………………..………
118
23. Do banks have special products and services designed for your business growth (multiple
Reschedule loans 1
Provide the necessary skills and counseling 2
Low interest rate on borrowing funds 3
Factoring/discounting 4
Others 5, please specify …………………………………………………….………
Section III: Role of microfinance institutions in Small and Medium Enterprises growth
24. Does your organization have access to financial resources from microfinance institutions
needed for developing your business? Yes 1 No
2
25. If the answer for question No. 24 is No, what do you think the reasons for not having access
to financial resources (multiple answers are possible)?
Inadequate collateral 1
No need for credit 2
Fear of inability to repay 3
Process too difficult 4
High borrowing cost 5
Others 6, please
specify……………………………………...
26. If the answer for question No. 24 is Yes, have you ever applied for a loan (“borrowed
capital”) to finance your business? Yes 1 No 2
27. If the answer for question No. 26 is Yes, what terms of credit (i.e. maturity period) involved
in relation to the most recent loan received from microfinance institutions
Less than 1year 1 5-10years 3
1-5 years 2 More than10 years 4
119
28. What criteria do the microfinance institutions use to offer loans (multiple answers are
possible)?
Collateral 1
Business plan 2
Permanent working places 3
Others 4, Please specify………………………..…
29. Are the criteria easy to be met? Yes 1 No 2
30. Do microfinance institutions give adequate fund needed for your business?
Yes 1 No 2
31. Loans received from microfinance institutions are most commonly used for
Purchase of inputs/raw materials 1
Purchase long lived assets like machinery, business building 2
Payment of loans 3
Others 4, please specify……………………..…………………………..
32. Have you ever had any problems in paying back the loan to microfinance institutions?
Yes 1 No 2
33. If the answer for question No. 32 is yes, what has happened to resolve them (multiple
Restructuring 1 Post pone payment date 3
Removal of interest payment 2
Others 4, please specify……………………………………..
34. Apart from financial services offered by the microfinance institutions, how do microfinance
institutions helps you(multiple answers are possible)
Set business plans and regular control of business 1
Saving and Payment services 2
Reschedule/restructuring loans 3
Insurance services 4
Others 5 please specify…………………………………………………………..………
35. Do microfinance institutions have special products and services designed for your business
growth (multiple answers are possible)?
120
Reschedule loans 1
Educating employee on the products and services offered 2
Provide the necessary skills and counseling 3
Low interest rate on borrowing for business development 4
Others 5, please specify …………………………………………………….………
36. Rank the sources your business normally uses to meet finance needs for working capital
requirement
Own saving/retained earn 1
Borrowing from banks 2
Borrowing from microfinance institutions 3
Government advance 4
Borrowing from relatives, iqub, associations 5
37. Rank the sources your business normally uses to meet finance needs for investment
Own saving/retained earn 1
Borrowing from banks 2
Borrowing from microfinance institutions 3
Government advance 4
Borrowing from relatives, iqub, associations 5
38. What is the role of banks in your business growth?
……………………………………………………………………………………………
39. What is the role of microfinance institutions in your business growth?
…………………………………………………………………………………………………….
40. Please indicate the impact of lack of finance on your business growth
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
41. Please indicate the role of banks and microfinance institutions which have not been covered
by the questions so far
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
42. Do you or can you conclude that banks and microfinance institutions have helped you in
developing your business? Explain how
………………………………………………………………………………………………
121
Appendix 2 - SMEs Survey instrument (Amharic Version)
አዲስ አበባ ዩኒቨርሲቲ
የቢዝነስና ኢኮኖሚክስ ፋኩልቲ
አካውንቲንግና ፋይናንስ ትምህርት ክፍል
የአነስተኛና መካከለኛ ድርጅት/ተቋማት

ድርጅት ተቋማት/
ተቋማት የጥናት መጠይቅ
የተከበሩ የጥናቱ ተሳታፊ
የዚህ ጥናት ርዕስ “Role of financial institutions in the growth of small and medium enterprises
in Addis Ababa” ነው፡፡

ነው አጥኝው ደረጀ ወርቄ ሲባል በአሁኑ ጊዜ በአዲስ አበባ የኒቨርሲቲ ውስጥ በአካውንቲንግና
ፋይናንስ የድህረ ምረቃ ተማሪ ነው፡፡
የጥናቱ ዋና አላማ በአዲስ አበባ የገንዘብ ተቋማት በድርጅቶች እድገት ላይ ያላቸውን ሚና ማወቅ ነው፡፡ ይህንን ለማድረግ
መረጃ በዕጣ ከተመረጡ ባንክ ቤቶችና የብድርና ቁጠባ /microfinance/ ተቋማት በፊት ለፊት የጥያቄና መልስ እና በዕጣ
ለተመረጡ አነስተኛና መካከለኛ ድርጅት/ተቋማት/ መጠይቅ በመበተንና በመሠብሠብ ይሆናል፡፡
በዚህ መጠይቅ ላይ መሳተፍ ሙሉ በሙሉ በፈቃደኝነት ላይ የተመሠረተ ነው፡፡ መጠይቁ የተሳታፊውን ማንነት ሳይለይ
ይመዘግብና ጥብቅ በሆነ ሚስጥርነት ይጠበቃል፡፡ የያንዳንዱ ተሳታፊ መልሶች በአጥኘው ጽሁፍ ላይ የመላሹ ማንነት ተገልጾ
አይቀመጥም፡፡
ለተጨማሪ መረጃ ደረጀ ወርቄን በሚከተለው አድራሻ ማግኘት ይችላሉ
ስልክ: +251 913 55 33 89
ኢ-ሜል: [email protected]
122
Appendix 2 SMEs survey instrument (Amharic version)
ክፍል አንድ፡ የርስዎና የድርጅቱ ጠቅላላ ሁኔታ
በተሰጡት የምርጫ ሳጥኞች ውስጥ የ ምልክት ያስቀምጡ፡፡
1. የርስዎ የትምህርት ደረጃ

ዲፕሎማ 1
ዲግሪ 2
ማስተርስና ከዚያ በላይ 3
ሌሎች 4 (ባክዎን ይግለጿቸው) …………………………………………………………..
2. በድርጅቱ ውስጥ ያለዎት የስራ ድርሻ

ስራ አስኪያጅ 1
ባለሀብት/ስራ አስኪያጅ 2
የሽያጭ ሰራተኛ 3
ሌሎች 4 (ባክዎን ይግለጿቸው) …………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………..
3. በዚህ የስራ ክፍል ላይ ለምን ያህል ጊዜ አገልግለዋል?

ከአንድ አምት በታች 1 5-10 ዓመት 3
1-5 ዓመት 2 ከ 10 ዓመት በላይ 4
4. የድርጅቱ ዋና የስራ እንቅስቃሴ ምንድን ነው?

ማምረት 1 አገልግሎት 4
ንግድ 2 ግንባታ 5
እርሻ 3 ሌሎች 6 (እባክዎ ይግለጿቸው)
5. የድርጅቱ የባለቤትነት ሁኔታ
በአንድ ግለሰብ ባለቤትነት የተያዘ 1
ከአንድ በላይ ባለሀብቶች ያሉት (ሽርክና) 2
ሀላፊነቱ የተወሰነ የግል ማህብር(plc) 3
ሌሎች 4 (እባክዎ ይግለፃቸው)………………………………………………………………………………………….
6. ድርጅቱ በዚህ የስራ ዘርፍ ላይ ለምን ያህል ጊዜ ቆይቷል?
7. በ2002 የበጀት ዓመት በአማካይ በድርጅቱ ውስጥ ምን ያህል ቋሚና ጊዜያዊ ሰራተኞች አሉ?
1-10 1 21-50 3
11-20 2 51-100 4
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8. በአማካይ ለአለፉት ሦስት ዓመታት የገበያ ውድድር/ፉክክር ምን ይመስላል?

ፉክክር የለም 1 ጠንካራ ፉክክር 3
መካከለኛ ፉክክር 2 በጣም ጠንካራ ፉክክር 4
9. በ 2002 የበጀት ዓመት በአማካይ ድርጅቱ ምን ያህል ሽያጭ ነበረው?

ብር 10,000 ወይም በታች 1 ብር 100,001 – 1,000,000 4
ብር 10,001 – 50,000 2 ብር 1,000,001 ወይም በላይ 5
ብር 50,001 – 100,000 3
10. በ 2002 የበጀት ዓመት በአማካይ ድርጅቱ ወደ ውጭ ሀገር የሸጣቸው/የላካቸው/ ከአጠቃላይ ሽያጭ ጋር ሲነጻጸር
በመቶኛ ሲሠላ ምን ያህል ይሆናል ?
1-10% 1 ከ 50% 4
11-20% 2 የለም/አይታወቅም 5
21-50% 3
ክፍል ሁለት፡ ባንክ ቤቶች በድርጅቶች ዕድገት ላይ ያላቸው ሚና
11. ድርጅቱ ከባንክ ቤቶች የገንዘብ ብድር የማግኘት ዕድል አለው? አዎ 1 የለውም 2
12. ለጥያቄ ቁጥር 11 መልስዎ ‘የለም’ ከሆነ፤ ምክንያቱ ምን ይሆናል ብለው ያስባሉ(ከአንድ በላይ መምረጥ ይችላሉ)?
በቂ ያልሆነ ዋስትና ያለመኖር 1
ብድር ያለመፈለግ 2
ብድሩን ለመመለስ ያለ ፍራቻ 3
ወለዱ ብዙ ስለሆነ 4
ብድር ለማግኘት ሂደቱ ከባድ ስለሆነ 5
ሌሎች 6 (እባክዎ ይግለጿቸው)………………………………………………………………………………………….
13. ለጥያቄ ቁጥር 11 መልስዎ ‘አዎ’ ከሆነ፤ ድርጅቱን ለማሳደግ የገንዘብ ብድር ተጠይቆ ያውቃል?
አዎ 1 የለም 2
14. ለጥያቄ ቁጥር 13 መልስዎ ‘አዎ’ ከሆነ፤ ድርጅቱ በቅርብ ጊዜ የተበደራቸው ብድሮች ለምን ያህል ጊዜ
ቆይታ/የብድር ጊዜ/ አላቸው?
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15. ባንክ ቤቶች የገንዘብ ብድር ለመስጠት ምን ምን ዓይነት መስፈርቶች ይጠይቃሉ(ከአንድ በላይ መምረጥ ይችላሉ)?
የዋስትና ማስያዥያ 1
የስራ ዕቅድ (business plan) 2
ዋስ/ተያዥ 3
ሌሎች 4 (እባክዎ ይግለጿቸው)………………………………………………………………………………………….
16. ባንክ ቤቶች ብድር ለማበደር የሚጠይቋቸው መስፈርቶች ቀላል ናቸው? አዎ 1 አይደሉም 2
17. ባንክ ቤቶች ድርጅቱ የሚጠይቀውን/የሚያስፈልገውን/ ያህል ገንዘብ ያበድራሉ?

18. ድርጅቱ ከባንክ የተበደረውን ገንዘብ አብዛኛውን ጊዜ ለምን ያውለዋል?

የፈጆታ ዕቃና ግብዓት ለመግዛት 1
ለረጅም ጊዜ የሚያገለግሉ ሀብቶችን ለመግዛት ለምሳሌ፡- የንግድ ቤት፤ ማሽኞች 2
ቀደም ሲል የነበሩ ብድሮችን ለመክፈል 3
ሌሎች 4 (እባክዎ ይግለጿቸው)………………………………………………………………………………………….
19. ድርጅቱ የተበደረውን ገንዘብ በሚከፍልበት ወቅት ችግር አጋጥሞት ያውቃል? አዎ
1 አያውቅም 2
20. ለጥያቄ ቁጥር 19 መለስዎ ‘አዎ’ ከሆነ፤ ባክዎን ችግሮችን ይግለጡ?
.............................................................................................................................................................................................
21. ለጥያቄ ቁጥር 19 መለስዎ ‘አዎ’ ከሆነ፤ ችግሮችን ለመፍታት ባንክ ቤቶች ምን የመፍትሄ አማራጭ ይሠጣሉ
(ከአንድ በላይ መምረጥ ይችላሉ)?
የብድር ማስተካከያ/ሥረዛ 1
የመክፈያ ጊዜን ማራዘም 2
ወለድ የመተው 3
ሌሎች 4 (እባክዎ ይግለጿቸው)………………………………………………………………………………………….
22. ከገንዘብ ብድር በተጨማሪ ባንክ ቤቶች ለድርጅቱ ዕድገት ምን አገልግሎት/ዕገዛ/ ሠጠውት ያውቃሉ (ከአንድ
በላይ መምረጥ ይችላሉ)?
ቁጠባ አገልገሎት 1
የስራ ዕቅድ ማዘጋጀትና የስራ አፈጻጸም ክትትል 2
የሦስተኛ ወገን ገንዘብ ማስተዳደር አገልግሎት(trustee) 3
የኢንሹራንስ/መድህን/ አገልግሎት 4
ሌሎች 5 (እባክዎ ይግለጿቸው)………………………………………………………………………………………….
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23. ለድርጅቱ ዕድገት ሲባል ባንክ ቤቶች ምን የተለየ አገልግሎት ይሠጣሉ (ከአንድ በላይ መምረጥ ይችላሉ)?
የመክፈያ ጊዜ ማስተካከል/Reschedule loans/ 1
የስልጠናና የምክር አገልገሎት 2
አነስተኛ የወለድ መጠን ያለው ብድር 3
ድርጅቱ ከደንበኞቹ የተቀበለውን የዱቤ ሽያጭ ደረሰኝ መግዛት (discounting) 4
ሌሎች 5 (እባክዎ ይግለጿቸው)………………………………………………………………………………………….
ክፍል ሦስት፡ ብድርና ቁጠባ /ማይክሮ ፋይናንስ/

ፋይናንስ/ ተቋማት በድርጅቶች ዕድገት ላይ ያላቸው ሚና
24. ድርጅቱ ከብድርና ቁጠባ /ማይክሮ ፋይናንስ/ ተቋማት የገንዘብ ብድር የማግኘት ዕድል አለው?
አዎ 1 የለውም 2
25. ለጥያቄ ቁጥር 24 መልስዎ ‘የለም’ ከሆነ፤ ምክንያቱ ምን ይሆናል ብለው ያስባሉ(ከአንድ በላይ መምረጥ ይችላሉ)?
በቂ ያልሆነ ዋስትና ያለመኖር 1
ብድር ያለመፈለግ 2
ብድሩን ለመመለስ ያለ ፍራቻ 3
ወለዱ ብዙ ስለሆነ 4
ብድር ለማግኘት ሂደቱ ከባድ ስለሆነ 5
ሌሎች 6 (እባክዎ ይግለጿቸው)………………………………………………………………………………………….
26. ለጥያቄ ቁጥር 24 መልስዎ ‘አዎ’ ከሆነ፤ ድርጅቱ ለማደግ የገንዘብ ብድር ጠይቆ ያውቃል?
27. ለጥያቄ ቁጥር 26 መልስዎ ‘አዎ’ ከሆነ፤ ድርጅቱ በቅርብ ጊዜ ውስጥ የተበደራቸው ብድሮች ለምን ያህል ጊዜ
ቆይታ አላቸው?
ከአንድ ዓመት በታች 1 5-10 ዓመት 3
28. የብድርና ቁጠባ /ማይክሮ ፋይናንስ/ ተቋማት የገንዘብ ብድር ለመስጠት ምን ምን ዓይነት መስፈርቶች
ይጠይቃሉ(ከአንድ በላይ መምረጥ ይችላሉ)?
የዋስትና ማስያዥያ 1
የስራ ዕቅድ 2
ቋሚ የስራ ቦታ 3
ሌሎች 4 (እባክዎ ይግለጿቸው)………………………………………………………………………………………….
126
29. ብድርና ቁጠባ /ማይክሮ ፋይናንስ/ ተቋማት ብድር ለማበደር የሚጠይቋቸው መስፈርቶች ቀላል ናቸው?
አዎ 1 አይደሉም 2
30. ብድርና ቁጠባ /ማይክሮ ፋይናንስ/ ተቋማት ድርጅቱ የሚጠይቀውን/የሚያስፈልገውን/ ያህል ገንዘብ ያበድራሉ?
31. ድርጅቱ ከብድርና ቁጠባ /ማይክሮ ፋይናንስ/ ተቋማት የተበደረውን ገንዘብ አብዛኛውን ጊዜ ለምን ያውለዋል?
የፈጆታ ዕቃና ግብዓት ለመግዛት 1
ለረጅም የሚያገለግሉ ሀብቶችን ለመግዛት ለምሳሌ፡- የንግድ ቤት፤ ማሽኞች 2
ቀደም ሲል የነበሩ ብድሮችን ለመክፈል 3
ሌሎች 4 (እባክዎ ይግለጿቸው)………………………………………………………………………………………….
32. ድርጅቱ የተበደረውን ገንዘብ በሚከፍልበት ወቅት ችግር አጋጥሞት ያውቃል?
አዎ
1 አያውቅም 2
33. ለጥያቄ ቁጥር 32 መለስዎ ‘አዎ’ ከሆነ፤ ችግሮችን ለመፍታት ብድርና ቁጠባ /ማይክሮ ፋይናንስ/ ተቋማት ምን
የመፍትሄ አማራጭ ይሠጣሉ (ከአንድ በላይ መምረጥ ይችላሉ)?
የብድር ማስተካከያ/ሥረዛ 1
የመክፈያ ጊዜን ማራዘም 2
ወለድ መተው 3
ሌሎች 4 (እባክዎ ይግለጿቸው)………………………………………………………………………………………….
34. ከገንዘብ ብድር በተጨማሪ ብድርና ቁጠባ /ማይክሮ ፋይናንስ/ ተቋማት ለድርጅቱ ዕድገት ምን አገልግሎት/ዕገዛ/
ሠጠውት ያውቃሉ (ከአንድ በላይ መምረጥ ይችላሉ)?
የቁጠባ አገልገሎት 1
የስራ ዕቅድ ማዘጋጀትና የስራ አፈጻጸም ክትትል 2
የሦስተኛ ወገን ገንዘብ ማስተዳደር አገልግሎት(trustee) 3
የኢንሹራንስ/መድህን/ አገልገሎት 4
ሌሎች 5 (እባክዎ ይግለጿቸው)………………………………………………………………………………………….
35. ለድርጅቱ ዕድገት ሲባል ብድርና ቁጠባ /ማይክሮ ፋይናንስ/ ተቋማት ምን የተለየ አገልግሎት ይሠጣሉ (ከአንድ
በላይ መምረጥ ይችላሉ)?
የመክፈያ ጊዜ ማስተካከል/Reschedule loans/ 1
የስልጠናና የምክር አገልገሎት 2
አነስተኛ የወለድ መጠን ያለው ብድር 3
ድርጅቱ ከደንበኞቹ የተቀበለውን የዱቤ ሽያጭ ደረሰኝ መግዛት (discounting) 4
ሌሎች 5 (እባክዎ ይግለጿቸው)………………………………………………………………………………………….
127
36. የአጭር ጊዜ የገንዘብ ፍላጎትን ለማሟላት ድርጅቱ የሚጠቀማቸውን የገንዘብ አማራጭ ምንጮች በቅደም ተከተል
ያስቀምጡ(በሳጥኑ ውስጥ ከ 1-5 ቁጥሮች በመስጠት የደረጃ ቅደም ተከተላቸውን ያሳዩ)?
የድርጅቱ ቁጠባና ትርፍ
ከባንክ ቤቶች ብድር
ከብድርና ቁጠባ /ማይክሮ ፋይናንስ/ ተቋማት ብድር
ከመንግስት የሚሠጥ ገንዘብ
ከዘመድ፤ከቤተሠብ፤ከዕቁብ፤ከማህበራት
37. የረጅም ጊዜ የገንዘብ ፍላጎትን ለማሟላት ድርጅቱ የሚጠቀማቸውን የገንዘብ አማራጭ ምንጮች በቅደም ተከተል
ያስቀምጡ(በሳጥኑ ውስጥ ከ 1-5 በመስጠት የደረጃ ቅደም ተከተላቸውን ያሳዩ)?
የድርጅቱ ቁጠባና ትርፍ
ከባንክ ቤቶች ብድር
ከብድርና ቁጠባ /ማይክሮ ፋይናንስ/ ተቋማት ብድር
ከመንግስት የሚሠጥ ገንዘብ
ከዘመድ፤ከቤተሠብ፤ከዕቁብ፤ከማህበራት
38. ለድርጅቱ ዕድገት ባንክ ቤቶች ምን ምን ዓይነት ሚና ተጫውተው ያውቃሉ?
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
39. በድርጅቱ ዕድገት ውስጥ የብድርና ቁጠባ /ማይክሮ ፋይናንስ/ ተቋማት ምን ምን ዓይነት ሚና ተጫውተው ያውቃሉ?
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
40. የገንዘብ እጥረት በድርጅቱ ላይ ያስከተለው ችግር ምንድን ነው?
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
41. እባክዎትን ከላይ በአጠቃላይ በመጠይቁ ከተጠቀሱት ውጭ ባንክ ቤቶችና የብድርና ቁጠባ ተቋማት ለድርጅቱ እድገት
ያደረጉት አስተዋጽዖ ካለ ይግለጹ?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
42. በርስዎ እይታ ባንክ ቤቶችና የብድርና ቁጠባ ተቋማት ለድርጅቱ እድገት እረድተውታል ብለው ያስባሉ? ያብራሩ
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
128
Appendix 3 In-depth interviews questions
Appendix 3 - In-depth interviews questions
1. What bundle of financial institution products/services delivered to SMEs?
2. What are the tools, techniques or modes employed in financial institutions for
financing of SME’s?
3. Does your organization have special products/ services design for SMEs? How?
4. Are your products/services really as accessible and as effective in catering for the
specific needs of SME’s?
a. Term
b. Duration
c. Adequacy
d. Cost ( time and many)
e. Simplicity
f. Criteria
5. Discuss modalities for the resolution of the problems encountered by SME’s in
accessing financial institutions products and services.
6. Is there any cooperation between microfinance institutions and commercial banks
in financing SME’s?
129

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Addis Ababa University

School of Business and Public Administration

Department of Accounting and Finance

Role of Financial Institutions in the Growth of Small and Medium

Enterprises in Addis Ababa

A thesis submitted to the Department of Accounting and Finance in partial fulfillment of

Dereje Workie Nigussie

Enterprises in Addis Ababa

A thesis submitted to the Department of Accounting and Finance in partial fulfillment of

By: Dereje Workie Nigussie

Chairperson (Graduate Committee) Signature

Approved by Board of Examiners:

Advisor: Wollela A Y (PhD):________________________________

been dully acknowledged.

Name: Dereje Workkie Nigussie

contribution of financial institutions, assessing the accessibility and affordability of

research approach was employed for in-depth interviews.

measures which should be performed by the government and by financial institutions.

commercial banks should reappraise their role.

Key words: role, financial institutions, SMEs growth

study. My thanks also go to Addis Ababa University for providing me financial

invaluable encouragement; otherwise it could be a great challenge for me to complete my

study with a great confidence.

Table of contents ........................................................................................................... viii

List of tables .................................................................................................................... xi

List of abbreviations ...................................................................................................... xiii

Chapter One - Introduction ............................................................................................. 1

1.1. Statement of problems ...................................................................................... 3

1.2. Research objective, hypothesis and research questions .................................... 5

1.3. Research methods ............................................................................................. 6

1.4. Significance of the study................................................................................... 7

1.5. Scope of the study ............................................................................................. 8

1.6. Structure of the study ........................................................................................ 9

Chapter Two - Literature Review ................................................................................. 10

2.1. Theoretical studies .......................................................................................... 10

2.1.1. Overview of Financial Institutions.............................................................. 11

2.1.1.1. Role of Banks ...................................................................................... 14

2.1.1.2. Role of Microfinance institutions ........................................................ 20

2.1.2. Nature and Importance of SMEs in Economic Development ..................... 22

2.1.2.1. What is an SME? ................................................................................. 22

2.1.2.2. Indicators of Growth ............................................................................ 25

2.2. Empirical Review............................................................................................ 30

2.3. Conclusion and Knowledge Gaps ................................................................... 34

Chapter Three - Research Methodology ...................................................................... 36

3.1. Hypothesis and Research questions ................................................................ 36

3.2. Research Approaches ...................................................................................... 39

3.2.1. Quantitative research approach ................................................................... 40

3.2.2. Qualitative research approach ..................................................................... 42

3.2.3. Mixed methods approach ............................................................................ 44

3.3. Research Methods Adopted ............................................................................ 45

3.3.1. Quantitative aspect of the study .................................................................. 46

3.3.2. Qualitative aspect of the study .................................................................... 51

3.3.3. Data analysis methods................................................................................. 52

Chapter Four - Results and analysis ............................................................................. 57

4.1. Results ............................................................................................................. 57

4.1.1. Survey results .............................................................................................. 57

4.1.1.1. Respondents’ profile ............................................................................ 58

4.1.1.2. Role of Banks in the Growth of SMEs ................................................ 63

4.1.1.3. Role of MFIs in the growth of SMEs .................................................. 70