The Bank’s SME Market Report for the second half of 2017 was released this week. The report can be found here.
Key results from the report include:
- Annual gross new lending to non-financial, non-real estate SMEs in Q3 2017 is 24 per cent higher than a year ago.
-
The SME lending market has become more concentrated in the last six months, with fewer banks holding an ever larger market share.
-
The share of SMEs in Ireland reporting they did not apply for bank loans because of sufficient internal funding was 50.4 per cent in September 2017.
-
SME loan rejection rates in Ireland have increased to 13.9 per cent in September 2017 from 8.2 per cent in March 2017.
- Interest rates for SME loans stood at 5 per cent in July 2017, high in a European context.
- When scaled relative to domestic demand, new loan issuance to SMEs in Ireland is very low compared to European comparator economies.
-
The share of SMEs transitioning into default between the period December 2016 and June 2017 is 2.4 per cent. The highest transition rates reported in the Wholesale/Retail sector (2.9 per cent) and the South-east (3.4 per cent).
We have published the data behind each chart for the first time. The spreadsheet can be found here.