Financial services helping to boost SME economy, research shows

Research from Amazon has shown that financial services are among the sectors that are leading the SME economy, with small and medium-sized enterprises in the sector seeing a 1.7% increase in revenues over the past year.

The Q2 2018 Amazon SME Growth Tracker from Capital Economics, which was commissioned by Amazon UK and Enterprise Nation, analysed the growth prospects and views on the wider UK economy from SMEs using data from a survey of more than 1,000 UK SMEs.

Optimistic

While small business owners across all regions were found to not be feeling positive about their business conditions over the coming year, SMEs in the financial services sector were feeling more optimistic, with the SME Confidence Index showing a score of +3.

Financial services SMEs expect to see an acceleration to 1.9% over the next year, higher than the national average, where respondents said that they were expecting a growth of 0.4% over the same period.

Confidence is also high in financial services when it comes to investment, with firms in the sector expecting the biggest increase in investment over the coming year. New staff and capital expenditure will be top priorities for firms in the sector, with respondents planning to increase investment in these areas by 1.5% and 0.6% respectively.

Plans

Commenting on the research, Amazon’s UK Country Manager Doug Gurr said that it is clear that if there is confidence in business conditions, then owners of small businesses are creating plans for job creation, growth and investment, so the more that can be done to increase SME business confidence, the greater the benefits are for the whole of the economy.