Bank Market Structure and SMMEs’ Access to Finance: A South African Perspective

While the importance of banking sector on various fundamental economic variables is well-documented in literature, little known about relationship between bank market structure and access to finance for opaque firms, particularly developing economies such as South Africa. Using ordered probit logit models, we investigate impact small, micro medium enterprises (SMMEs)access finance. Our results show that high concentration increases obstacle accessing SMMEs Africa, non-linear. Thus, a greater extent, our study validates power hypothesis, which argues low competition diminishes firms’