Features of Legal Regulation of Contractual Legal Relations in the Field of Bank Lending to Small and Medium-sized Businesses

Small and medium-sized enterprises are one of the important sectors of the economy that ensure the economic security of the state, due to the impact that it has on the stability of the socio-economic system. But due to the limited resources of their own and greater sensitivity to economic changes than other enterprises, small and medium-sized businesses need to provide sources of additional financing throughout their activities. The legal regulation of state support is a fundamental basis for the development of small and medium-sized businesses. Despite the financial support measures already in force and newly introduced by the state to ensure the effective growth of small and medium-sized businesses, including concessional lending, the creation of guarantee funds, etc., the increase in lending to small and medium-sized businesses was insignificant and mainly in such an industry as Wholesale and Retail Trade, which They demonstrate stable development without government assistance. The basis for the legal regulation of bank lending to small and medium-sized businesses should be the features of these entities related to the special conditions of lending in various industries, the procedure for setting the interest rate in the loan agreement and the limits of its change. The purpose of this article is to identify the features of legal regulation in the field of bank lending to small and medium-sized businesses. The problems under consideration are: to analyze whether obtaining benefits in lending is a right for small and medium-sized businesses; to study the specifics of loan agreements in different industries; to identify the procedure for setting the interest rate in the loan agreement and the limits of its change.

Conclusions. According to the results of the study, it was found that the conditions of bank lending do not take into account the characteristics of borrowers in different industries. Restraining the development of bank lending is due to the lack of a legislative framework protecting the rights of borrowers. The legislation does not oblige Banks to conclude a preferential loan agreement, the terms of which depend on the internal rules of the bank and the current legislation.