Banking reforms on the growth of small and medium sized enterprises

The core objective of this work is to empirically investigate Banking Reforms and the impact on Small and Medium Sized Enterprises in Nigeria. The research was structured such that four research questions, objectives and hypothesis were formulated to guide the study. The work discussed relevant related theories; conceptual and empirical literatures and empirical analysis using the Ordinary Least Square technique to estimate the model constructed for the study based on time series data which covered an evaluation period of 43 years (1970-2012) from the CBN Statistical bulletin, Nigeria Bureau of Statistics and Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency Reports. In the empirical analysis, the growth of Small and Medium Enterprises serve as dependent variable while bank capital base, interest rate, exchange rate and bank loans serve as independent variables. Research findings reveal that there exist a significant positive relationship between the growth of Small and Medium Enterprises and the operational banking reforms instruments; Exchange Rate, Bank Capital Base and Loans to Small and Medium Enterprise while Interest rate was negatively and inversely related in Nigeria.