SMEs are the main drivers of economic development. As the debt crisis and coronavirus crisis show, despite their importance, they are extremely sensitive to economic downturns. Therefore, SMEs need to be supported through various tools. The paper is aimed at evaluating the SMEs’ bank and governmental support in the northern and southern EU countries in two crisis periods and assessing the financial state of SMEs on the eve of coronacrisis using micro-level data. It was proved that bank loans and credit lines remain the main sources of SMEs’ financing. After the debt crisis, banks are becoming more loyal to SMEs.It was proved that SMEs from the northern EU countries suffered less from the previous crisis and therefore started their recovery earlier than the southern ones in terms of profitability, liquidity and debt burden. In addition, it was shown that both groups on the eve of the new turbulence period were in better financial state compared to the previous debt crisis. The southern EU countries suffered more from both crises. At the same time, due to effective governmental support and bank loyalty, their SMEs entered the coronacrisis at the same level of financial stability as the northern ones. Since the new support measures are concentrated primarily in the banking sector through loan guarantee schemes and reduced interest rates, it is essential to provide debt financing to high-quality borrowers and avoid the debt crisis in southern counties.

SMART specialization is a basic approach to the development of regional innovation policy. It involves identifying priority sectors of the local economy with the involvement of key stakeholders. Currently, statistics on the development of regions are presented in terms of large business, small and medium. In this context, the generally accepted methodology from the Joint Research Center of the European Commission has limited application. Because it does not take into account the performance of microbusiness (individual entrepreneurs). For countries with economies in transition, this is critical, as they reach 80% of the business structure. Therefore, considering their voice is also necessary. Our approach involves a combination of quantitative (assessment of innovation and economic potential of the region) and qualitative (survey of microbusiness representatives) methods to identify priority areas of SMART specialization. Approbation of the offered method was carried out on the example of the Mykolaiv region which is in the south of Ukraine. The results of the study have shown that the innovation of microenterprises is at a low level. At the same time, they demonstrate a high level of desire to be involved in the process of SMART specialization and innovation of production.

Abstract. The article focuses on the sources and main indicators of financial risks of the largest agricultural companies of Ukraine, whose shares are traded on foreign stock exchanges. On the basis of comparative analytical review of credit, liquidity, currency and interest risks we identified their potential impact on the financial stability of the investigated companies. The research results helped to determine that liquidity and currency risks are the greatest threat to the holdings at this stage of development of agricultural sector. Economic recession in the domestic market, lowing of global growth forecasts and problems with VAT refunds, which deepen the existing gap between the repayment period of receivables and payables, have an impact on the liquidity risk. Currency risk enhances the specificity of the company's liabilities structure which is dominated by the currency credit obligations, while the decline in world market prices for commodities may course fall of share of export currency earnings in income.

Over the past three decades, the relative bank loan demand has changed due to the arising small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Therefore, banks in their operations face the problem of processing an ever-increasing number of loan applications. The aim of this paper is to develop an auxiliary approach to assessing the prior creditworthiness of long-term SME projects with nonstandard cash flows.This study reveals how the principles of value-based management can be incorporated into the process of borrower’s creditworthiness assessment to improve the process of screening loan applications. For this, the internal rate of return was used as a criterion for loan granting decision at the initial stage of loan underwriting.An algorithm for the preliminary evaluation of loan applications is proposed and is based on the principle of maximizing the shareholder value of banks. This algorithm helps to define the credit terms taking into consideration the distribution of positive cash flows throughout the project’s expected economic life, calculate the possible real effective interest rate concerning the borrower’s nonstandard cash flow schedule, make a rough analysis on the economic efficiency of lending and state the necessary criterion to initiate the procedure of loan underwriting for the projects with nonstandard cash flow schedules. The proposed estimation algorithm stemming from the IRR-approach for the cash flow analysis can also be initially used by a borrower as a tool for credit solvency self-testing via screening of periods with corresponding cash flows that can be used for loan servicing.

The SME lending covers a list of its needs related to its day-to-day performance, fixed assets, development. Existing methods of identifying impact on economic indicators from using loans by SMEs are limited. The aim of the research is to develop a methodology which allows reveal the impact of SME lending on business value added on macroeconomic level. The methodology is based on correlation regression analysis in order to identify the level of loan influence on business development, value added in particular, due to the lack of adequate methods for SME development forecasting. The obtained results are sufficient for medium business and be used in forecasting medium business development in Ukraine. For small business model has insufficient density of the relationship between indicators, therefore, it was proposed to use additional factors as equity; liabilities and non-economic factors exemplified as the level of shadow economy.