ACCESS TO FINANCE AND ITS IMPACT ON SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISE (SMES) PERFORMANCE IN KANO STATE

Abstract

The poor performance of Nigerian SMEs when compared with other developing countries of the world calls for this study to be investigated. The study investigates effect of access to finance on the performance of small and medium enterprise (SMEs) in Kano State. The sample of 390 out of the population of 21,615 registered SMEs operating in Kano State was obtained using Dilman (2014) sample size formular. The analysis was carried out using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) with PLS version 3.0. The results show that access to finance has positive and significant effect on SMEs performance in Kano State. The c=study concluded that access to finance can play a vital role in improving the performance of SMEs. Therefore, the study recommends that SMEDAN, CBN, MFIs and NIRSAL should work together by providing adequate financial resources that can assist SMEs to boost their performance. Finally, limitations and suggestion for future research were provided and discussed.