Determinants of small and medium scale enterprises financing by the banking sector in Nigeria: a macroeconomic perspective

Abstract

This study assesses from a macroeconomic perspective the determinants of small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) financing by the banking sector in Nigeria between 1992 and 2014. The empirical model specifies commercial banks’ lending to SMEs as a function of selected macroeconomic indicators which include commercial banks’ total deposits, financial deepening, interest rate spread, lending rate, monetary policy rate, commercial banks’ total assets and inflation rate. The 2SLS estimation results show that only commercial banks’ deposit mobilization, depth of the financial sector and size of the banking sector act as determinants of SMEs financing by commercial banks