SMEs' access to bank finance in Scotland: an analysis of bank manager decision making

This paper focuses on supply-side issues relating to access to bank finance by entrepreneurs in Scotland. We analyse bank manager decision making of real business propositions through verbal protocol analysis. The paper discusses the nature of the decision-making process from interviews with bank loan officers utilising verbal protocol analysis with validated real entrepreneur business proposals to give insights into the decision making of bank loan officers in the processing of bank funding proposals. Hence this paper reports the supply-side findings from the larger study on SMEs' access to bank finance in Scotland.