Thursday, January 13, 2011

SMEs Still Starved for Credit

 

Greenwich Associates highly regarded Market Pulse Study on SME credit availability reports that two-thirds of small businesses and 55% of middle  market companies indicate that banks are failing to meet the needs of creditworthy  companies.  Half of the 221 small businesses participating in the latest  Greenwich  Market Pulse Study say it is harder to secure credit today than it  was at  this time last year including roughly 33% of businesses that  say it  is much harder to obtain loans today.

The Small Business Lending Fund (SBLF) a $30 billion program established by the Treasury Department to encourage Community Banks to step up lending to SMEs is still trying to get some traction in the marketplace.  The SBLF injects capital into community banks that demonstrate an active SME lending  program will take another quarter to determine its effectiveness.

Community Banks are still transitioning its small business lending focus from an over dependency on real estate development.  SMEs seeking loans for capital improvements, fund operations or business expansion must provide lenders some added assurances about the financial health of the business.

SMEs can take steps to improve their credit standing and get approvals from lenders for loans and expansion for credit.  SMEs must demonstrate they have an excellent understanding of the condition of their firm's financial health, what they must do to improve profitability and how they will use the credit extended by lenders to produce an acceptable return.

Credit Redi helps SME's demonstrate the condition of the firms financial health, the risks and opportunities that SMEs must address to improve the firms financial health and identify the initiatives that need to be  funded to achieve desired profitability and growth.  These are the keys bankers look for on applications for loans.  Being able to demonstrate credit worthiness with an industry standard rating methodology determines weather a lender will grant you a loan, what rates you will pay and how much lending institutions will lend.

Since 2002, Sum2 has been helping SME's manage risk and seize opportunities to grow and prosper under the most competitive market conditions.  Credit Redit is the latest addition to Sum2's series of SME risk management products.

To determine the condition of your company's financial health click Credit Redi: 

Risk: credit, SME, capital allocation, credit rating

Monday, January 10, 2011

Credit Redi, Helps Spot Small Business Credit Risk


The recession and credit crunch have shifted financial risk from banks to small and midsized businesses (SME) that often must extend credit to customers to make a sale. When companies extend credit, in effect making unsecured loans, they're acting like banks but without the credit management tools and experience of a banker.

Credit Redi is designed for small businesses to quickly spot customer credit risk. Small businesses typically don't have access to information that provides transparency about customer credit worthiness. Credit Redi is a credit risk management tool for small and mid-sized businesses. It only takes one or two bad receivables to damage an SME's financial health. Market conditions quickly change and its critical to have some type of business insight into the businesses SME's work with.

Credit Redi is also an excellent tool to determine the financial health of critical suppliers. A key supplier going out of business could have disastrous consequences for SMEs. Credit Redi monitors the financial health of existing suppliers and help managers make wiser choices in supply chain and business partner decisions.

Get Credit Redi here:

Risk: SME, credit risk, supply chain, partnerships, customers, receivables