Satisfaction of Small and Medium-sized Companies with the Policy of Banks

Abstract

Satisfaction with the policy of commercial banks concerning SMEs is one of the most important factors affecting the success of commercial banking activities. This paper analyses the scientific approaches to importance of SME satisfaction with the commercial banks. The analysis of scientific publications revealed that one of the most important factors affecting the satisfaction of small and medium-sized enterprises with banks is the policy concerning SMEs. Comparisons of the results of two studies, analysing satisfaction of small and medium-sized enterprises with the policy of commercial banks concerning SMEs, are presented in this article. One study was conducted in Canada in 2002, another one – in Lithuania in 2011. These studies identified and investigated the factors influencing satisfaction of small and medium-sized enterprises with the policy of commercial banks concerning SMEs, i.e., granting of loans corresponding business needs, offering appropriate financial services to business, creating favourable loan conditions, flexible response to changing business needs, business support by a bank during successful company activities period, business support by a bank in the critical moments of company activities, making timely financing decisions. It was found that all relationships between the factors and the satisfaction with the policy of commercial bank are linear and the correlation coefficients are quite high, indicating that the relationship between the factors is strong enough. However, these studies did not reveal statistical significance of the elements and their possible impact on the satisfaction with commercial banks policy. The current study includes all previously investigated factors and was conducted using the questionnaire method. The respondents were employees of Lithuanian small and medium-sized companies. Statistical analysis shows that only granting of loans corresponding business needs, offering appropriate financial services to business, creating favourable loan conditions, flexible response to changing business needs are statistically significant elements for satisfaction of small and medium-sized enterprises with the policy of commercial banks concerning SMEs. In addition, it was found that there is no multi-colinearity, there are no outliers among investigated factors. The regression equation of satisfaction of small and medium- sized enterprises with the policy of commercial banks concerning SMEs indicating the weight of each statistically significant factor to the overall satisfaction with the commercial bank policy was created. In other words, the equation shows how satisfaction with the policy of commercial bank varies changing one of the most important factors and helps predicting changes in satisfaction.