SME Financing Data Initiative
sme-fdi.gc.ca
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Financing SMEs in Canada: Barriers Faced by Women, Youth, Aboriginal and Minority Entrepreneurs in Accessing Capital — Phase 2: Gap Analysis and Recommendations for Further Research
Summary Recommendations
- Significant gaps exist in the current research data pertaining to business owner characteristic-related barriers to financing in particular, and to SME financing in general;
- Barriers to SME financing do exist, and vary significantly according to business type, age, stage and industry with owners facing different barriers accordingly. Data does not exist to demonstrate whether the Profile Groups face greater barriers than the general SME population when stratified according to the categories noted above;
- Based on information collected during Phase 1, the hypothesis of business owner characteristic-related barriers to financing cannot be validated on the basis of existing data;
- Additional research is needed to fill these data gaps, and analysis of barriers faced by any business owner profile will be relevant only if there is sufficient baseline data on access to financing for SMEs in general for comparative purposes;
- Future research in this area should be national in scope, and should be designed to collect SME financing data that can be disaggregated according to a variety of criteria identified as relevant in Phase 1 of this project. This research should include data collection related to firm characteristics (e.g., age, stage, sector, industry, geographic location); related to type of financing sought (e.g., debt financing, equity financing); and related to business-owner profile characteristics (e.g., gender, ethnicity, age).
