The SME Finance Monitor was established in 2011 and provides detailed analysis of SMEs and their access to finance on a half yearly basis. The latest full report (YEQ2 2017) was published on September 14, 2017. As fieldwork takes place on a continuous basis, it is also possible to provide headline data on key issues in between these full reports. This pack will therefore be provided on a monthly basis and provide the latest 3 months rolling data across a range of issues.

The most recent data point for this report is the 3 months from August 2017 to October 2017. Headline analysis is provided for all SMEs, with key questions split by size of SME. Some analysis is also provided by the type of international trade (if any) undertaken alongside domestic activity:

• Exporting but no importing (labelled as “export only”) ‡ Importing but no exporting (labelled as “import only)
• Both importing and exporting (labelled as “import & export”)
• No international trade, SME only trades domestically (labelled as “domestic sales only”) Differences shown month on month are not necessarily statistically significant.

Differences of 4%+ month on month are needed for the total sample and up to 10%+ for some of the smaller groups (such as those trading internationally).