How we use Cookies  Late payments are so damaging to the SME
sector  Professor Dylan Jones-Evans explores the damaging impact
of late payment to SMEs and how larger companies could fund
firms their supply chains  Welsh SMEs are owned more than £1.5bn
at any one time in late payments  ONE of the most under-
appreciated but most important issues in relation to the funding
of SMEs (small to medium sized enterprises) is that of the
availability of trade credit.  While there has been a focus on
lending from banks, it must not be forgotten that according to
the latest statistics, 69% of Welsh SMEs are classed as “happy
non-seekers” ie, those SMEs that had not had a borrowing event
with a bank and also said that they had not wanted to apply for
any (further) debt funding in the previous 12 months.  The
question is how do such businesses survive without cash?  The
answer is that they rely on credit from other businesses – more
than 80% of all business- to-business sales are made on credit,
allowing SMEs to ask supplie