SME finance initiative

 EC launches capital markets blueprint

The European Commission’s has launched its long-awaited blueprint for a capital markets union designed to improve small companies’ access to financing beyond traditional bank loans. The EC said it will work on ways to encourage private placements and the securitisation of small firms’ debts across Europe, in the hope of unlocking and regulating new sources of capital that are not yet used to finance businesses. Lord Hill, the new EU commissioner responsible for capital markets, said that said that about €20bn of capital could be accessed by bundling up small debts into securitised products at about half the level seen before some of these products soured in 2007, leading to the credit crunch report Harris & Co accountants Northampton, the specialist small business accountants