ISME survey shows high refusal rate for bank credit

The Irish Small and Medium Enterprise organisation claims that 49% of small and medium firms have been refused bank credit in the last three months.

It reveals a slight improvement on the 54% in the previous quarter.

Their Quarterly Bank Watch Survey, conducted in the week ending September 7, shows that demand for bank credit was steady at 38% in the same period.

The association has called on the Government "to immediately demand full and complete disclosure from the bailed out banks on lending to SMEs".

They siad that the report backs up the recent report from the Central Bank "that access to bank finance is being denied to viable but vulnerable businesses".

The survey attracted 862 responses.