Microentrepreneurs in Mexico have low financial skills, the ability to request advice on a financial issue or the rapid response to adverse economic scenarios is low, in addition to the fact that the access that micro and small businesses (mypes) have is limited, according to with research conducted by Mastercard.

The study “Strive Mexico: Paths to the resilience of Mypes”, indicates that 45% of microenterprises do not have enough confidence in banks to resort to them, in addition, only 16% of microenterprises have a bank account, in comparison with 79% of large companies that do.

The lack of trust in institutions may be one of the reasons why small businesses access financing through their suppliers and other sources of informal financing, the situation is further aggravated when women are the ones who lead the microenterprise, according to the document made by BFA Global.

“We found that women have fewer ties to the formal economy, access to credit for microenterprises run by women tends to fall more on suppliers than on banks,” said Marco Del Río, a consultant at BFA Global, during the presentation.

Regarding credit, one out of every three microenterprises indicated that the main barrier to obtaining a loan was the cost; 16% of small companies presented the same problem; 12% of the medium ones and 8% of the large ones.

According to the “Panorama of Financial Inclusion 2021”, more SMEs were financed than large companies during 2020; however, the balance for the first category was 1,850 million pesos, while for the second type of company it was 406 million. In addition to that the average interest rate for small and medium businesses was 7.2%, compared to 1.2% for the average interest rate for large business loans.

Given the lag that these companies present in financial matters, the Strive Mexico initiative was created, an effort that will seek to support small entrepreneurs, although Mastercard insisted that the initiatives to support the sector must have the joint participation of the government.

In an interview, Mauricio Schwartzmann, general director of Mastercard Mexico, commented that the initiative will seek to train 400,000 businesses for three years in digital and financial skills focused on resilience, but stressed that a joint effort is required for the project to be successful.

Digitization

Integration

Regarding technology and digital payment methods, the research found that their use improved the resilience of the company in adverse seasons. During the pandemic, 45% of micro-enterprises used digital tools.

Payment methods

Although cash leads as a payment method in mypes, 24% accept payments by electronic transfer, while 10% accept payments by credit or debit card.

Lead effective

In the case of micro-businesses, this means that 59% of total sales are made in cash, while for small businesses it is 29%, for medium-sized businesses it is 18% and for large ones it is 6 percent. .

incentives

To achieve greater adoption of digital payments, it is necessary to approach educating and training Mypes. We lack the incentives here to achieve the digitization that we deserve due to the relevance and size of the Mexican market.

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