Financial sector development and microcredit to small firms

This article investigates the relationship between countries’ financial sector development and the loans extended to micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs or small firms) by microfinance institutions (MFIs). Using 4,801 MFI-year observations worldwide, we find a negative relationship between financial sector development and MSME lending by microfinance institutions. In other words, improvement in financial development, defined as a combination of depth, access, and efficiency, decreases micro-lending to small firms due essentially to intense competition from banks. Moreover, looking at the ownership status of microfinance institutions, we find that the intense competition between profit-oriented microfinance institutions and banks mainly drives the observed negative relationship. For nonprofit microfinance institutions, financial sector development is not significantly associated with their lending to small firms. In a less developed financial sector, microfinance institutions lend more to small firms, fulfilling their social mission.