{"id":257663,"date":"2018-07-10T16:14:15","date_gmt":"2018-07-10T14:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=257663"},"modified":"2018-07-10T16:15:00","modified_gmt":"2018-07-10T14:15:00","slug":"how-much-money-people-say-they-need-to-run-a-small-business-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/257663\/how-much-money-people-say-they-need-to-run-a-small-business-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"How much money people say they need to run a small business in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Online finance portal Finfind has released its inaugural South African Small, Medium and Micro Enterprise (SMME) access to finance report.<\/p>\n

Sponsored by the South African SME Fund, the report is based on a data sample of 11,033 SMME funding requests, making it one of the most comprehensive studies on access to finance in the sector.<\/p>\n

Some of the key findings in the report include the need for funders to develop new credit scoring models to address the large credit gap, said\u00a0Darlene Menzies, CEO of Finfind.<\/p>\n

She added that, currently, banks struggle to fund SMMEs.<\/p>\n

“This is often due to a one-size-fits all approach to this market segment and applying traditional lending methods that rely on collateral and conventional financing scorecards,” she said.<\/p>\n

The report also highlights the significance of the SMME credit gap, which is estimated to be as large as R346 billion.<\/p>\n

According to the report, the top four reasons SMMEs requested funding in 2017 was startup capital, buying equipment, expanding businesses and working capital. Together these make up 62.4% of the total SMME funding requests, it found.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Nearly half (44%) of the SMMEs who requested funding were for amounts less than R250,000, while 73% of the loan amounts requested were for R1 million or less.<\/p>\n

The report found that the median size of funding requested by an SMME is R400,000. Of this:<\/p>\n