The fifth annual edition of the OECD Scoreboard highlights developments in SME financing over the 2012-14 period. On the positive side, it shows that the outstanding stock of SME loans rose in 16 out of 27 countries,including the Czech Republic. New lending in 2014 surpassed 2013 levels in most countries, including the Czech Republic. Interest rates on new loans to SMEs in the country increased in 2014, compared with 2011-2013, the OECD scoreboard shows.

There are around 1.1 milliom active enterprises in the Czech Republic (as of 2014), 99.84% of them being small and medium-sized enterprises and 92.7% of them being micro firms. New SME loan share on the total business lending dropped from 24% in 2007 to 17% in 2013. The reasons behind are stricter rules for credit risk management on the side of banks and on the side of entrepreneurs, they had to learn how to use internal financial resources more effectively. Venture capital peaked in 2008 to drop by a factor of more than ten in 2013.  Interest rate spreads between loans to SMEs and to large enterprises in the Czech Republic rose from 0.97 in 2007 to 1.75 in 2014.

Read the report (in English).