Ethnic minority entrepreneurs and the commercial banks in the UK: access to formal sources of finance anddecision-making by their bankers

This chapter is concerned with access to bank finance by ethnic minority businesses (EMBs) in the U.K., focusing particularly on the process of decision-making by bank managers with respect to credit applications by entrepreneurs from ethnic minority groups. The results reported in this chapter are taken from a major U.K. study that included two large scale surveys of EMB owners and a white control group, case studies with ethnic minority entrepreneurs and a programme of interviews with business support agencies. Whilst referring to other evidence, this chapter focuses on the findings from a series of interviews with bank representatives. The U.K. study was funded by the British Bankers’ Association (BBA), the Bank of England and the Small Business Service and supported by the Commission for Racial Equality