Increasing the number of start-ups is an important challenge in regional development. The Japanese government has been aiming to achieve a 10% start-up rate as soon as possible, but this has not been realized. In November 2022, it created a new 5-year plan for startup development. Meanwhile, Aichi Prefecture has also positioned the start-ups' increase as an essential industrial policy target. Given the high expectations for regional financial institutions as supporters to increase the number of start-ups, we conducted a survey in December 2020 to evaluate the level of active support for start-ups by financial institutions from the firms' point of view. Our survey is unique in that we collected a certain number of respondents from all prefectures to examine each prefecture's characteristics. This paper attempts to deepen our understanding of the business environment in Aichi Prefecture by using the results of the survey to compare Aichi Prefecture's figures with those of the nation as a whole. The results indicate that regional financial institutions that do business with SMEs in Aichi Prefecture are rated among the best in Japan regarding their traditional financial capabilities. Still, their non-financial support capabilities are only about the national average, and there is significant room for improvement, especially in start-up support.
