Inadequate Access to Finance: A Bottleneck for Entrepreneurial Vibrancy in Ilaro, Ogun State, Nigeria

This study seeks to establish the inadequacy of access to finance as a bottleneck for the growth and vibrancy of entrepreneurship in Ilaro, Ogun State, Nigeria. The paper adopts a descriptive research design. Structured questionnaire was used to elicit information from a cross-section of SME operators in Ilaro. A simple random sampling technique was adopted to select the respondents. A total of 170 copies of questionnaire were administered out of which 155 copies representing 91.2% were filled and returned. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics while formulated hypotheses were tested using Z-statistics. Results indicated that lack of collateral and unwillingness of individuals to guarantee bank loans are major hindrances to accessing bank credits. Personal savings and loans from families and friends are also grossly inadequate to grow SMEs. The study also revealed that majority of the respondents relied on their personal savings to start up due to stringent conditions attached to bank loans. The study therefore recommends that SME operators should form trade associations to ease access to credits through group guarantee by pooling resources together as collateral. They also need to act ethically, be responsible and trustworthy for banks to be willing to do business with them; there is the need for banks to also relax their conventional credit rules through good and favourable policies when dealing with SME operators. This will not only benefit the SME operators but the nation at large.