In the recent Breedon report’s “Boosting finance options for UK business” paper, it was interesting to see that external equity funding is significantly under-utilised by small UK businesses. Only 3% of small businesses use equity finance whereas a staggering 55% use credit cards.

Source: Small Firms in the Credit Crisis: Evidence from the UK Survey of SME Finances www2.warwic.ac.uk/fac/soc/wbs/research/csme/research/latest/small_firms_in_the_credit_crisis_v3-oct09.pdf