Balancing growth and risk is a delicate task for banks. By understanding client needs and leverage their technology capabilities, banks can not only maintain this balance but also tap into new opportunities in emerging industries. The partnership between Deutsche Bank and Chinese fintech XTransfer, highlighted by their recent success in Thailand, serves as a prime example of how tailored solutions and innovative processes can drive growth and operational efficiency.

While incumbent Italian banks have seen profits surge thanks to higher rates, the shrinking size and profitability of the non-performing loan market has hit illimity hard. Unperturbed, founder and chief executive Corrado Passera believes the original premise for an SME-focused neobank is more valid than ever.

The limitations of the Alternative Investment Market are forcing many companies to explore other sources of funding. Nevertheless, there is optimism that the market for small and medium-sized growth companies can be revived.

Corporate and development banks want their capital to reach the smallest and most impactful of SMEs in frontier markets. Traditional credit ratings and risk assessments can get in the way.

The inability of trade-finance participants to fully leverage the value of the data generated by transactions remains a source of frustration, particularly for small businesses.

Banks may be retreating from lending directly to small and medium-sized enterprises, but by lending to credit specialists with good technology they can still be a source of funding for the sector.

It took five years for the invoice finance specialist Accelerated Payments to advance its first €1 billion, but just nine months for the next €500 million.

High interest rates and low bank appetite for risk have created the perfect conditions for a renaissance in invoice factoring.

Marketplace lending providers are pinning their hopes on challenging economic conditions to persuade investors that they can disrupt the lending market.

Private credit funds are committing more to specialist non-bank lenders such as iwoca, seeing big potential in small business credits, even if NPLs are set to climb.

The specialist loan servicer and portfolio manager has grown fast but sees high demand from banks and investors to manage illiquid credit.

Fonsis is an interesting sovereign wealth fund, operating a fund-of-funds model to help the country’s SME development while generating an industry around the management of private capital.

New platforms that underwrite and process invoices due from large creditworthy payers may encourage bank and institutional financing for small and medium-sized enterprises.

Hitesh Anadkat has spent the last 25 years building an African SME banking empire from scratch from his base in the Malawian city of Blantyre. His FMB Capital Group now also has operations in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Zambia, Mauritius and Botswana; and he is looking to gain market share in them all.

The fintech’s fast growth highlights the large banks’ inability to adapt their technology to provide basic finance to small businesses.

OCBC’s Virtual SME Campus has an expensive public face.

Scarred by the lockdown, suppliers now want payment upfront while customers demand extended terms: a problem is brewing in B2B payments and receivables.

French banks are handing out more state-guaranteed loans than other country in Europe, but they have more to worry about than small businesses in France.

EIB looks to help the most vulnerable and to encourage banks to take on more risk as it unveils a €5.2 billion package for non-EU countries.

Debt forgiveness may stave off an immediate banking crisis in the country hardest hit so far, but the longer-term outlook is grave.

Expo 2020 showcases economic and business opportunities in Dubai. Bankers hope it will lead to a boom in areas such as SME lending and infrastructure investment, but worry that a short-term lift will not be enough to dispel broader concerns about the country’s economy.

Small companies with short trading histories and thin credit files make up a growing part of the economy that established banks are not set up to serve.

The Trade Club Alliance, a new 14-bank partnership to match SME exporters and importers, reflects greater willingness among banks – especially in Europe – to work together against low-cost newcomers, while relinquishing their own global ambitions.

Clients have had a much easier time than their banks in Germany, but fintech innovation is creating ways for the likes of Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank to thrive, even in the country’s SME heartlands.

Zagreb Stock Exchange pilots multi-level market structure with Estonia’s Funderbeam.

Europe’s economy depends in large part on 25 million SMEs, most of them unrated, that will suffer reduced availability and higher cost of credit thanks to Basel III output floors.

Singapore’s banks lead the field in services for small and medium-sized enterprises that go beyond their home base into the surrounding countries: some of the very few cross-border SME businesses that can be found in the world.

According to the World Bank, small and medium-sized enterprises account for approximately 95% of all registered firms in Africa – financing them is essential to regional growth.

Banks’ track record on lending to small and medium-sized enterprises, the growth driver of the economy, remains a mixed one in Europe.

The region’s best bank for small and medium-sized enterprises is Bancolombia.