Access to finance is still among the top concerns of the EU’s small and medium sized enterprises and younger and smaller firms are the most badly affected, according to the “Access to Finance” survey released by the European Commission and European Central Bank.

About one third of the SMEs surveyed did not manage to get the full financing they had planned for during 2013 and 15% of survey respondents saw access to finance as a significant problem for their companies. “Companies believed that bank financing conditions worsened during 2013, with respect to interest rates, collateral and required guarantees.”

European Commission Vice-President Antonio Tajani, Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship commented, “Since the start of the crisis, evidence has consistently shown that SMEs face large and disproportionate obstacles to accessing the finance they need to survive and thrive. This is why we are introducing the COSME programme, to focus on facilitating access to finance for SMEs. COSME will provide a guarantee facility for SME loans up to and even over € 150 000 and we expect that from now until 2020 around 344 000 EU firms will receive COSME backed loans.”

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