- Published
- 18 December 2021
- Journal article
Has previous loan rejection scarred firms from applying for loans during Covid-19?
- Authors
- Source
- Small Business Economics
Abstract
The concept of the ‘discouraged’ borrower is well documented. In this paper we consider whether smaller firms in the UK who have been previously rejected for bank loans have been scarred by the experience so badly that even in the presence of two exceptionally generous Covid-19 loan guarantee schemes they still refuse to make an application. Further, we also consider what happens when they do. As banks have either zero or minimal loss exposure, do they still maintain their normal strict lending protocols or do they relax their standards to fulfil the governments’ objective of supporting struggling businesses through the crisis? Our findings show that 72% of previously rejected borrowers are reluctant to request loans. We find some evidence that previously scarred firms faced such severe liquidity problems that they relaxed their distrust of banks during the Covid-19 crisis. However, their share of the governments guaranteed loan portfolio was slightly lower suggesting that banks were treating each new loan application on its merits.
Rights
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Cite as
Cowling, M., Liu, W. & Calabrese, R. 2021, 'Has previous loan rejection scarred firms from applying for loans during Covid-19?', Small Business Economics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-021-00586-2