Those small businesses among current bank borrowers whose information problems are the least severe -- that is, those that are the least informationally opaque -- would presumably be the most likely to be funded outside of the banking system.
Nevertheless, no matter how many advances there are in information processing and no matter how sophisticated financial markets may become, there will likely remain a significant role for bank-borrower relationship lending to solve the information and other BIS Review 57/1997  -3-  financing problems of small businesses.