Browsing by Author "Avevor, Peter Besah"

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    Community banking and financing SMEs (Artisans) at Kokompe in Takoradi
    (2011) Avevor, Peter Besah
    The study was carried out to investigate Community Banking and financing of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises, using artisans at Kokompe Industrial Area in Takoradi, in the Western Region of Ghana as a case study. It was designed to determine the factors which limit SMEs to assess of credit facility from the formal financial sector. The major instruments used in the study were questionnaires, interview schedules and discussion. A questionnaire of 38 questions was presented to the artisans to respond to. The financial institutions had 15 questions to respond to. The study revealed that 75% of the SMEs were owned by men and 25% owned by women. The artisans were financed by both banks and other financial institutions. Most SMEs preferred the non-bank financial institutions to the banks because of higher interest rate, delay in the release of loans by banks, and inability to provide collateral securities required by the banks. The researcher recommended that, banks and informal financial agents may be able to enter into relationships that took advantage of the latter’s superior information about small clients and their relatively low cost of frequent small transactions, risk can be controlled through character based lending to entrepreneurs (artisans) who have good track record of repayment of loans. Also working arrangement with NGOs may help reduce the cost of screening and monitoring of SMEs entrepreneurs and financing small medium scale enterprises need support in terms of protection from the government against competition from abroad. This can go a long way to help the SMEs increase their sales, profit as well as working capital which would be plough back into the business to increase the capital base of the SMEs businesses.