This story about small business loans reminded me of a conversation I had with a print boss a few weeks ago. He runs a pretty typical SME print operation, which thanks to careful cash management operated within a piffling overdraft facility of well under £20,000 - the sort of sum that many people could run up on a credit card or two without any questions being asked.

The firm used its overdraft as a sort of comfort blanket to give a bit of additional headroom should it be required when big bills came in. I'm using the past tense here because the bank decided to withdraw the facility without notice. Perhaps this was because some genius at the bank's head office decided that gathering up all their five-figure small business overdrafts would add up to a nice fat figure to improve their own books. Perhaps there's just a red flashing light over printers in general, per the now infamous Tenon report.

Whatever the reason, the loss of the facility is additional aggravation the MD could do without right now. But he's stuck. I recall some sage advice from Paul Holohan, who recommended that printers convert their overdrafts to loans - then as long as you make the payments the bank can't move the goalposts. The Catch-22 nowadays is that the thought of the various hoops to be jumped through in order to gain approval for a loan may be offputting in itself.

Hence, perhaps, the apparently paradoxical "SMEs favour overdrafts over loans". They're keeping their heads down and don't have a choice.