Abstract
Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) play a central role in developing economies but face persistent credit frictions. In Morocco, only 6% of MSMEs have ever taken out a bank loan, in an economy where they represent more than 99.8% of enterprises and generate over 73% of total employment. This constitutes a first-order impediment to investment and firm growth. Using the 2019 World Bank Enterprise Survey, this paper examines the determinants of MSMEs’ credit outcomes and whether corporate website adoption attenuates information asymmetries in bank lending. Credit access is modelled as a sequential need–approval process: a multinomial logit classifies firms by credit status, a sample selection probit corrects for non-random entry into credit need, and an instrumental-variable probit addresses website endogeneity and selection jointly, with an extended probit as robustness check. Across specifications, website ownership robustly raises the probability of credit approval, alongside firm size, training, export orientation, and female ownership. The website premium is largest for domestic, female-owned, and informationally opaque firms, consistent with signalling theory. These findings suggest that firm-level digitalization constitutes a scalable complement to traditional financial inclusion instruments for narrowing the funding gap. The paper contributes by incorporating discouraged borrowers, separating need from approval, instrumenting digital adoption, and uncovering a complementarity between female ownership and digital signalling in an emerging-market context.