Bank Lending of Small Technology Companies: Current State and Development Challenges

The issues surrounding scientific research focused on financial support for technology companies of various organizational and legal forms and levels of maturity, where government support measures play a crucial role, require reevaluation in contemporary conditions. The reduction in soft loan to small technology companies, based on budget subsidies for interest rates, coincides with an increase in the key interest rate set by the Bank of Russia. This situation could be mitigated by credit programs offered by banks that are tailored to meet the specific needs of this category of borrowers. An analysis of lending practices for small technology companies revealed that the largest Russian banks do not recognize them as a distinct category within credit relations; instead, they offer loans under terms that are standard for all small businesses. The primary obstacles are the parameters of these loans, which collectively define their accessibility: interest rates, requirements for substantial collateral, and the capacity of innovative products to generate the income necessary to meet loan obligations in emerging markets. The results of the analysis provided the foundation for developing a set of measures aimed at encouraging banks to lend to small technology companies. These measures focus on promoting the responsibility and interests of banks – particularly systemically important banks with government participation in their capital – in solution of strategic tasks to increase the scale of lending to priority sectors of the economy based on their own credit programs not connected with government support. Such recommendations included, in particular, tax and regulatory preferences for banks, as well as proposals to modify procedures for risk assessment of non-repayment of loans through consolidation. Authors’ contribution. Yu.E. Kopchenko – substantiation of the methodology and development of research concept, systematic presentation of lending mechanisms for small technology companies, justification of ways to encourage banks to develop and implement their own lending programs that are not related to government support, taking into account to the specifics of small technology companies and focused on their intensive growth, writing the text of the article, general scientific editing of the text of the article; L.V. Ilyina – drawing up a research algorithm, substantiating the role of loan in the activities of small technology companies and highlighting their specifics as subjects of credit relations, summarizing research results and formulating conclusions; E.V. Sergeeva – selecting scientific sources and conducting content analysis of publications on the research topic, collecting and analyzing empirical data substantiating tax and regulatory preferences for stimulating banks’ lending activity in the segment of small technology companies.