Finance for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises - DTI Home Page

Finance for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: A Report on the 2004 UK Survey of SME Finances
These charts reveal the overall level of satisfaction with non-price elements of the
relationship is high compared to satisfaction with charges. In particular:
• Just under two-thirds of businesses are either very, or fairly, satisfied with
the availability of finance at their bank.
• However 1 in 4 businesses are unable to say whether they are satisfied or
dissatisfied with the availability of finance. This could be because the
business has not sought any finance from its bank.
• Almost 90% of businesses are satisfied with the competence of bank staff.
• More than two-thirds are satisfied with their bank’s level of understanding
of their business.
• However about 15% are unable to say whether they are satisfied or
dissatisfied with their bank’s level of understanding of their business.
The results so far indicate that a substantial minority of SMEs are dissatisfied with the
charges made by their main provider, but most are satisfied with the competence of
bank staff. We now turn to the issue of whether this dissatisfaction with bank charges
translates into switching, or even contemplation of switching banks.
Switching
In this part, we analyze the percentages of SMEs with current accounts which have
switched in the last 3 years (annualized rate), or are considering switching, or would
consider switching if approached by another bank.
By
adding the percentages of businesses which have switched to their current bank
recently, with the percentages seriously considering switching from it, we can
get an
informal
estimate of the degree of churn in the market. That is, ‘churn’ is taken to
mean the percentage of businesses which have switched to a new bank (‘inflows’)
plus the percentage who are considering switching from their current bank (potential
‘outflow s’).
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