Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are facing enormous changes in the European financial sector. A growing number of international businesses are being confronted with a shift in financing towards international sourcing opportunities. Thus, to make international capital markets more attractive to European SMEs, the European Commission is currently implementing 33 new measures (the European Capital Markets Union). The goal of these measures is to incentivise more capital market-based forms of financing. However, the question of whether these new measures will also lead to an effective improvement in new venture and growth financing has not been answered. Our article intends to fill this gap in the research literature by applying a mixed-method approach focussing on experts (interviews) and SME firms (survey). We find that the Capital Markets Union will by no means make regional banking systems superfluous with regard to future SME financing. We conclude that banks and capital markets can only contribute significantly to stabilising the European financial system by complementing each other.
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At present, the UK is regarded as the most important place in Europe for many capital market segments. According to estimates, the depth of the EU capital market will be reduced by approximately 16% due to the exit. Noticeable cuts are expected for venture capital markets.
The main focus of the subject areas not presented here is firstly on the promotion of long-term infrastructure and sustainable investments, secondly on fostering retail investments and finally on the alleviation of cross-border investments.
Only bank loans themselves are considered here—credit lines, bank overdrafts and credit card overdrafts are explicitly not included in the statistics quoted.