The "Cooperative Banks & Smaller Institutions" (CBSI) window of the EIB Group Risk Enhancement Mandate (EREM) shall contribute to the EIB group's intention to increase lending to small and mediumssized enterprises (SMEs) and to broaden the range of intermediaries through which it operates, in...

SMEs are the backbone of the European economy. The financing situation for European SMEs is slightly improving, but also differs very much from country to country. In Europe, SMEs' financing strongly depends on banks and also after the crisis banks will remain the main external financing source...

This EIF Working Paper takes a holistic approach to investigate SME financing patterns in Europe by performing a cluster analysis including 12,726 SMEs in 28 European countries. The results reveal that SME financing in Europe is not homogenous but that different financing patterns exist. The...

This paper estimates the economic impact at final beneficiary level of the Multi-Annual Programme for enterprises and entrepreneurship EU SME Guarantee Facility in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern European (CESEE) Countries in the period 2005-2012. Data on SME beneficiaries has been collected...

In the area of access to finance for Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) there are often market imperfections/failures – either as temporary effects or as fundamental structural deficiencies. To identify and analyse these issues, SME Access to Finance Market Assessments (AFMAs) are...

A well-functioning securitisation market is a way to ease the supply problems by helping banks diversify their funding and achieve capital relief. In October 2010 we presented our first working paper on SME loan securitisation (SMESec); since then the financial and economic crisis continued and...

We develop distress prediction models for non-financial small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) using a dataset from eight European countries over the period 2000-2009. We examine idiosyncratic and systematic covariates and find that macro conditions and bankruptcy codes add predictive power...

It is well known that Micro and Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of the economy. Most of these companies use external financing sources like debt and equity capital to finance their activities. However, in general, in the area of SMEs' access to finance, there are...

Securitisation has, after a period of significant growth throughout the last 10-15 years, become the finance area which has fallen the most from its peak – both in terms of new volumes as well as its image as an innovative and efficient financing tool. While market insiders, including...

This European Small Business Finance Outlook (ESBFO) provides an overview of the main markets relevant to EIF (equity, guarantees, securitisation, microfinance). It is an update of the ESBFO June 2016. We start by discussing the general market environment, then look at the main aspects of equity...