Banks believe SMEs are, for the most part, receiving the finance they require, while SMEs often feel it's not even worth applying for finance in the belief that they will be turned down anyway. A recent study from the Business Finance Taskforce has actually shown that over half of SMEs who applied for bank credit during the past year were, in fact, successful. Similarly 72% of SMEs had overdrafts approved and 59% of SME loan applicants were successful.

While all this sounds good, it's all relative to the number of applications, and the reality is that only 15% of SMEs applied for new credit. Another important point is that the smallest SMEs are losing out to medium-sized companies in the finance stakes.