EU Federation for Factoring and Commercial Finance Breakfast Workshop in European Parliament: Building Bridges between Finance and SMEs
Brussels, 27th January 2016 – Markus Ferber, MEP and Vice Chairman of the ECON Committee today chaired a breakfast meeting at the EU Parliament sponsored by the EUF.
The program brought together top EU policy makers, from both the European Parliament and the European Commission, finance providers and leaders of real economy SME users. The hundred attendees explored the opportunities and issues that these employment and wealth creating businesses face in obtaining funding on the ground.
Welcomed by John Gielen, Chairman of the EUF, a range of speakers analysed the impact of Capital Markets Union’s EU Commission flagship project to foster “real economy” funding , the lack of harmonized approaches across different countries and legislations, access to and the relative cost of finance, together with the issues of disseminating knowledge and information.
This theoretical approach was then tested against the real world experience of three SME businesses who talked of their operational challenges in obtaining funding and how in their cases factoring had provided an effective solution for meeting their working capital needs. "SME financing is not about building a bridge, but building bridges – this means offering each SME an individual financing solution that matches its particular business model," Markus Ferber, MEP, pointed out.
The forum gave the groups the opportunity to understand the positons and challenges that each face and was welcomed by all as an important and successful opportunity for dialogue, with doors opened for ongoing exchange of views and information.
John Gielen, the Chairman of EUF, commented: “This meeting was all about building bridges; between the regulators, the providers and SME finance users; today we have had a constructive opportunity to share experience and understanding that provides a new platform upon which to build.”