SME Finance

Eleven countries reported developing and implementing 22 policies to enhance access, usage and the quality of formal financial services for SMEs in 2020. Most of the policies that were introduced targeted MSMEs by providing relief and supporting their recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

HIGHLIGHTS POLICY TRENDS

22 55

reforms in 11 countries reported in 2019

Since 2018, there were 55 reforms in 24 countries reported COVID-19 relief, SME finance frameworks, credit guarantee schemes

In Malaysia, Bank Negara Malaysia established a series of initiatives to support SMEs that were adversely affected by the global health pandemic, also encouraging digitization and innovation as paths to recovery. Among the new initiatives were: > a Special Relief Fund worth MYR10 billion (USD2.4 billion) to alleviate short-term cash flow problems faced by SMEs; > a Targeted Relief and Recovery Facility worth

MYR2 billion (USD486 million) for affected SMEs in the service sector; > a High-Tech Facility – National Investment Aspirations (HTF-NIA) Facility worth MYR1 billion (USD234 million) to support high-tech and innovative-driven SMEs; > a SME Automation and Digitalisation Facility (ADF) worth MYR300 million (USD 73 million) to incentivize

SMEs to automate processes and digitalize operations to improve productivity and efficiency.