Paper Title
Bank Involvement with SMEs in Zimbabwe
Abstract
The 2012 World Bank Survey in Zimbabwe revealed that 5.7 million people are working in the Small and
Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) sector. The SME sector is the country’s economic fulcrum. SMEs find it difficult to access
finance. Conventional wisdom argues that banks are the source of SME external funding. A survey of 8 banks on SME
funding, was carried out to assess the banks involvement with SMEs. From the survey, banks are keen to move into the SME
lending market but are sceptical on how to do it. Most banks concur that SME lending market is profitable.
Keywords - Bank Involvement, SME External Funding, SME Lending, SME Sector.