Findings from the second edition of the SME Financing Survey conducted by SPRING Singapore, revealed that about 13% of SMEs sought external financing in the past year and out of these, 90% that applied for debt financing1 were successful in their applications. 

The most commonly cited purpose by over 60% of SMEs that sought external financing2 in 2017 was for cash flow management. Bank loans were the most popular form of external financing across SMEs of different sizes, industries and stages of development. Majority of the remaining 87% that did not turn to external financing, indicated that they had sufficient funds to operate, while a smaller proportion (9%) indicated a personal preference not to borrow. 

While viable SMEs continued to be able to access debt financing, managing delays in customers’ payment remains as a key finance-related challenge. The findings further revealed that 64% of SMEs (i.e. three in five SMEs) currently faced some form of delay in receiving payments from customers. SMEs also continued to rank delays in customers’ payments as the top finance-related challenge they expect to face in the coming year.