Author(s): Sayed Abbas Ahmed, Ibrahim Elsiddig Ahmed, Kiran Mir Zafarullah Khan
Financing of small and medium enterprises is one of the main challenges in the UAE and worldwide. The absence of development banks adds additional burden on commercial banks to play a significant role in financing SMEs. This study analyzed the supply side through evaluating and ranking the importance of banks' financial variables on lending to SMEs. The study selected twelve local commercial banks in the UAE based on the availability of secondary data over ten years period (2010-2019). The study applies different tools of correlation, regression, and importance-performance map analysis (IPMA) to explain their relationships with SMEs finance and their ranking priority. All the variables have a positive correlation with financing SMEs. In addition, the availability of financial resources and deposits of the banks come in top ranking influence on lending to SMEs.