During the pandemic, having customers in other countries actually made it harder for small businesses to get a bank loan.
SSRN · March 13, 2026 · 6285838
Why it matters
While international exposure is usually seen as a sign of a robust business, banks viewed export intensity as a risk factor after COVID-19. Instead of rewarding global reach, banks specifically rationed credit to exporters to shield themselves from global trade uncertainty, creating a financial penalty for being an international player.
From the abstract
This paper examines whether the COVID-19 shock altered SMEs' financing conditions asymmetrically by international exposure. We use the ECB Survey on the Access to Finance of Enterprises (SAFE) for 2014-2022 to build firm-level measures of credit constraints based on loan application outcomes, and estimate a difference-indifferences specification interacting a post-COVID indicator with continuous export intensity. Export-intensive SMEs experience a disproportionate tightening of credit constraint