Evaluating Financial Support of Governmental Institutions and Private Banks to SMEs and Farmers: Case of Tokat City

Abstract

Small–medium enterprises (SMEs) are one of the essential building blocks of the economy in every country. The ratio of these enterprises to employment is very high. The number of studies dealing with loans and grants efficiency or exploring problems in reaching funds is limited. In addition, there is no study comparing governmental and private loans and funds, and no study explicitly focusing on the Tokat region to explore the issues in the loan and funds mechanism. This study evaluates the financial support of governmental authorities and private banks to SMEs using the SERVQUAL scale in five dimensions. First, the method is applied to structured surveys with SMEs and farmers in Tokat. In this regard, financial support is defined as a service evaluated by a gap analysis. As a result, we show a lack of empathy and efficient communication between SMEs and supporting authorities, namely between KOSGEB and SMEs and between private banks and SMEs. The study is unique in bringing farmers and SMEs together and raising voices on the problems not mentioned previously by governmental and private authorities.

Received: 27 October 2023 | Revised: 14 December 2023 | Accepted: 2 January 2024

Conflicts of Interest 

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to this work.

Data Availability Statement

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study.