Bank information monopoly and trade credit: do only banks have information about small businesses?

According to previous studies, a bank can set a higher interest rate for small firms by establishing a lending relationship since information asymmetry limits competition between banks. Therefore, the bank can acquire monopoly rent from small firms. However, if small firms can use trade credit which is another financial source, the bank cannot extract monopoly rent. In this article, we examine whether small firms can use trade credit if the bank sets a higher interest rate. Using panel data of small firms in Japan, our analysis shows that when the interest rate the bank sets is too severe or worsened for the borrower, the ratio of trade payables increases and the bank loses its amount of loans. This result implies that trade creditors alleviate the problems of bank information monopolies in Japan.