Impact of Alternative Funding Instruments to Improve Access to Finance in SMEs: Evidence from Vietnam

Access to finance in the digital era is innovative with the different alternative funding approaches. In emerging markets, digital innovation of the financial sources is not limited to the own capital or borrowing from bank or credit institutions but numerous paths of financing. The purpose of the research is to recognize the alternative and innovative funding tools including borrowed from bank/credit institution, borrowed against interest from other sources, and borrowed from other sources without interest, peer-to-peer (P2P) lending -borrowed from friends and relatives without interest-, and stocks issued. The data was obtained from the survey of 2647 enterprises conducted by the UNU WIDER 2015 in Vietnam. The probit model approach for access to finance is used to analyze the impact of alternative funding tools for enterprises. The results predict the use of alternative funding tools for startup capital and investment financing of the firms separately. The results revealed that sources of start-up capital from founders’ own money, loans from friends and acquaintances, finance/investments from other enterprises, domestic bank loan, and Informal credit association (money lenders, informal bank, pawnshop) are positively and significantly affect the access to finance, while loans from family members, business associations, and international bank loans are not significant. Meanwhile, own funding, bank/credit institution, borrowed against interest from other sources, and borrowed from other sources without interest, borrowed from friends and relatives without interest have significantly affected the access to finance. In a summary, the alternative funding tools are an important source for financing SMEs in Vietnam.