This survey was carried out on behalf of Hitachi Capital Invoice Finance (HCIF) and included individual responses from 502 companies in the U.K. Overall 67.13% of the companies surveyed have sought out external sources of financing in the past 12 months, although 35.06% of them will try to avoid borrowing money if at all possible.

The main reason for not wanting to borrow money is that companies do not want to owe additional money (53.59%), even though 71.71% have had to invest their own personal funds. This report explores the type of external financing businesses have sought in the last 12 months and how many SMEs have invested their personal funds into their business in the last 12 months, among other items.