The Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) Development Fund Management Committee together with five local banks announced the establishment of a financial services platform yesterday in a bid to make it easier to give loans to SMEs.
“SMEs’ lack of transparency in their financial information has often made it difficult for financial institutions to evaluate loan risks. Therefore, in general, financial institutions’ willingness to give SMEs loans is low compared with loans for large enterprises,” Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥), administrative deputy minister of the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), said at a press conference yesterday.
The platform will help banks simplify SME loan procedures and verify data accuracy.
“The platform can accurately reflect SMEs’ operating information for banks to verify, which will help shorten the loan process,” Jack Huang (黃新吉), president of Taiwan Business Bank (台灣中小企銀), said yesterday.
Yang Ya-hwei (楊雅惠), a policy-making member of the Financial Supervisory Commission, said that bank loans to SMEs in Taiwan increased around NT$795.4 billion (US$26.19 billion) from July 2005 to last month, with the total amount of loans reaching NT$3.16 trillion.
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