Owner Characteristics And Access To Bank Financing

Abstract

The study examines the influence of owner specific factors on access to bank financing among SMEs in North Central Nigeria. Self-administered questionnaires were employed for data collection from the sampled SME owners/managers in the study area. A sample of 280 SMEs was drawn from the population of 1030 SMEs. Logistic regression was used in analyzing the data. The study found that gender, personal networking and personal relationship with the bank, which are significant at 0.05, 0.1 and 0.1 respectively, are the owner characteristics influencing SMEs’ financial access, whereas the owner’s age, education, experience, financial literacy and personal wealth do not have significant influence on SMEs’ access to bank financing in the region. The study concluded that while all the identified owner’s attributes are complementarily important in financial access, banks are more gender biased, value personal relationship and networking ability of firm owners. The study therefore, recommended among others, the need for SME owners to establish and maintain more improved relationships with their banks and form strong linkages with relevant stakeholders in the external environment for better resource exchange including financial access.