This paper investigates changes in the number of bank relationships of small and medium-sized enterprises in Switzerland from 1996Switzerland from to 2002 It differentiates between overall bank relationships and lending relationships and disaggregates the loan market with respect to firm sizes, industries and banking groups. On average, bank lending declined, and the concentration of lending relationships increased. The changes seem to have been driven by demand and supply for medium-sized firms, but only by supply for micro and small firms. Supply-side reductions resulted from a merger and changes in credit risk management by major banks. We find evidence of increasing specialization of larger banks on transaction lending and of smaller and regional banks on relationship lending.(J.E.L.: G21, G32).
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.