The Capital Reality Check

Despite abundant global liquidity, the SME financing gap persists—not because capital is unavailable, but because it is not structured or deployed effectively. Fundamental mismatches continue to limit access: collateral frameworks designed for fixed-asset businesses exclude asset-light firms; lending tenures often fail to align with SME investment and growth cycles; and the economics of small-ticket lending remain unattractive for traditional banks without more efficient underwriting models.

This session takes a hard look at where these structural constraints are preventing capital from reaching SMEs in practice, and what it will take to fix them—focusing on how to realign financial systems through smarter regulation, more fit-for-purpose product design, and better incentives for financial institutions, ultimately moving from available capital to capital that is accessible and deployable at scale.