중소기업 신용보증의 경기대응성 분석

Trend of consolidation and soundness-oriented fund’s operation in Korean banking sector has been intensified after the financial crisis of 1997 and with the introduction of 'Bank for International Settlements treaty' (Basel II) accord in 2008. Commercial financial institutions in Korea exhibit transactional credit management, meaning that they tend to give short-run management loans to blue-ribbon company and leading firms. Under Basel II, financial institutions also must secure appropriate capital for risky assets. Considering this financial market situation, it seems that commercial banks' risk evasion maneuver would decrease providing loans for newly establishing enterprises and risky, but potentially innovative 'small- and medium-sized enterprises' (SMEs). In spite of their pivotal role in creating new employment and economic value added in GDP, SMEs in Korea have been suffered from financial shortage. Korean SMEs accounts for 99.9% of all enterprises (3 million SMEs), 87.5% of all employees (10.8 million employees), and 49.4% of production. Many promising SMEs in Korea, however, do not have collateral or credit history when they apply for loans to commercial banks. In particular, commercial banks' lending to SMEs exhibits procyclical behavior over business cycle. Lending to SMEs is decreased in recession phase; while increased causing excess investment and promoting bubble in expansion phase. After the Asian financial crisis of 1999, actually, the co-movement between Korean financial institutions' loans to SMEs and business cycle has been intensified. In order to alleviate the financial market distortion for SMEs faced limited access to financial institutions, it is argued that the government support via timely policy financing is inevitable. Government intervention facing financial market failure can be occurred mainly via direct loans, grants, and indirect loan guarantees. While direct loans and grants directly offer to the targeted recipients via government agency or the government itself in place of banks, loan guarantees requires the participation of three parties: the government agency, the borrower and the commercial banks. In this sense, current Korean government's supports for SME financing include Bank of Korea's aggregate credit ceiling loan, government's policy loan, and credit guarantee system. Among them, the credit guarantee system is a financial intermediary designed to enable promising SMEs without enough collateral to obtain funds and make smooth headway in the financial or business transaction Organizations providing credit guarantee service, which include Korea Credit Guarantee Funds, Kibo Technology Fund, and 16 regional Credit Guarantee foundations, are established to complement SME financial market failure. Credit guarantee was an important tool to support SMEs in financing during a financial crisis. The total amount of credit guarantee had been increased from 1998 in order to overcome the Asian financial crisis; as the economy recover from the recession, however, it had been steadily decreasing since 2004. The credit guarantee balance ratio contrast to the GDP had been decreased from 7.9% of 2001 to 4.9% at the end of 2007. The recent financial crisis emerged in the U. S. quickly pushed the global economy into a deep recession. The downturn has also affected Korea. Due to the decrease in exports and the drop in domestic consumption, many SMEs are suffering from liquidity shortage. Under the unstable financial market situation, commercial banks are reducing their loans to SMEs, thus further exacerbating the credit crunch of SMEs. In response to this situation, Korean government has taken bold steps such as aggressive interest rate cuts and fiscal stimulus to support financial markets. Many special guarantees were implemented to stabilize the financial shortage of SMEs and restore the financial market. Various special guarantees were provided for SMEs experiencing difficulties due to the fluctuating financial markets. The credit guarantee balance has been expanded from the second half of 2008 in response to the financial crisis and subsequent recession. Public credit guarantee institutions devised temporary higher credit line, wider coverage ratio, prompt guarantee support, rollover of existing guarantees and son on. Hence the outstanding SME loans for 18 domestic banks in 2008 rose by KRW 52.4 trillion to amount to KRW 422.4 trillion, backed by the government's intensive support for SMEs. In this paper, I analyze whether a credit guarantee program can be devised as an economic mechanism that assists SMEs for their financial stability. Introducing empirical models with time-series data, I investigate the relationship between various business indicators and the supply of credit guarantee. In addition, I analyze whether the increase of credit guarantee induces banks' lending to firms. Financial structure in Korea has an impact on business cycles. Business cycles may be amplified by financial market imperfections. Empirical results support that the procyclicality of Korean banks' lending to SMEs is substantial. I also find that the transmission channel of credit guarantee system in Korea is an efficient method of easing adverse reactions against the deepening of business fluctuation associated with procyclical behavior of financial institutions via increasing banks' lending to firms. Credit guarantee can be used to smooth out economic fluctuations in economic activity: the supply of credit guarantee expands during the economic recession and contracts when the economic situation is relieved. The spread of global financial crisis emerged in initially 2007 and its resulting credit squeeze has affected the behavior of financial institutions. Against the tightened credit market, Korean government and Bank of Korea have aggressively injected emergency funding into the market to relieve business fluctuations. While the short-term challenges are focusing on recovery from the financial crisis, it is a challenge now to us on how to deal with excess liquidity and potential asset inflation. It is also time for organizations providing credit guarantee service to stimulate sound credit transactions through the efficient management, while maintaining the role of SMEs' driving force. But it seems that it is not easy to reduce the level of credit guarantee in the short run. This paper is divided into four sections, including the introduction. In section 2, I briefly discuss the financial conditions of SMEs, and Korea's credit guarantee system. In section 3, I empirically analyze the effect of credit guarantee on the business indicators using both aggregate and micro level time-series data. The last section concludes the paper with providing policy recommendations to mitigate procyclicality problem of commercial financial markets.