In collaboration with the Institute of Financial Services Zug IFZ at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Pactum has studied the financing of Swiss SMEs. The study, “Alternative SME Financing,” compares data from 2016 and 2021 and is based on information from 2,700 companies. The data was collected on behalf of the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs SECO.
The focus of the question is on alternative financing instruments. This involves significant amounts of money: The volume of alternative financing amounts to around CHF 300 billion: Which is almost half of the total debt capital of Swiss SMEs.
In recent years, significantly more SMEs in Switzerland have resorted to debt financing than five years ago, even without taking Covid 19 loans into account. While two of three SMEs were still exclusively self-financed in 2016, this proportion fell to 45 percent in 2021.
At the same time, companies with positive growth prospects use alternative financing significantly more frequently than those with a negative or stagnating outlook. The Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts concludes that alternative financing instruments will continue to gain importance.
The study is only available in German: