Two-thirds of the smallest, often one-person businesses, fund investments on their own. Even more – over 80% of micro-businesses fund their running operations from their own financial resources, a research by Tax Care quoted by wnp.pl shows. Only 22 and 17% micro-business respectively use bank loans.

Those self-employed base their businesses primarily on their own resources due to problems with credit accessibility. This particularly concerns start-ups since banks, due to the potential risk, are reluctant to take up their funding or do so on unfavourable terms, wnp.pl notes. Beginning businesses may count only on a small loan to finance running operations (like a debit or credit card). The longer history a company has, the broader bank offer it can expect, including an investment loan. Unfortunately, the loan offer for businesses – unlike the one for consumers – is not standardized and not transparent. Businesspeople from the SME sector approach bank loans with a certain distance, research by the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development (PARP) shows. Almost half of lenders consider bank loan to be a regular investment tool, but almost the same number of respondents declared they would decide to take a bank loan only in case of significant financial problems. For many business-owners a bank loan should be used only to finance large investments and micro-companies fear they would not have funds to repay it.