Canadian small business lending (and delinquencies) rises in February

According to the PayNet Small Business Index, month to month lending to small and mid sized business in Canada rose for February. The index rose almost 2 points for small business lending (110.2 to 112.0) and almost 3 points for medium sized firm lending (187.5 to 190.2). Despite the good news in terms of month to month for 2018, ” the number of small businesses that were delinquent 30 days or more rose for the first time since January 2017 to 0.89 percent from 0.81 percent.” The sectors with the greatest amount of delinquency increases included construction and manufacturing.

On a year to year scale, small and medium business lending is still down however with small business lending down 5 percent and mid sized firm lending down almost 20 percent. The current estimates is that there will not be heavy investment in Canadian small and mid sized businesses for the time being as the country’s slight financing pull back continues.