Auswirkungen des Basel II Akkords auf österreichische KMU

The paper discusses the impact of the Basel II Accord on the financing of smalland medium size enterprises (SME) in Austria. Although the Basel II Accord hasnot been established yet, the study tries to evaluate the expected impact of theBasel II Accord on SMEs, on the bases of the current financial data of SMEs. Theempirical work used the NACE datapool for Austrian SME provided by KMUForschung Austria. In the datapool, SMEs are defined as companies with aturnover of up to € 100 Mio. In addition to the statistical analysis an empirical datasurvey has been conducted by Triconsult. The survey focused on the expectedimpact of the Basel II Accord on SMEs by intermediaries (f.i. consultancies andtechnology transfer agencies). The results of the study show that most SME andintermediaries are not prepared for the new regulations initiated by Basel II.Accordingly three measures should be taken by policy makers to enhance SMEscapability to adjust to the new requests established by the Basel II Accord:1. Extension of the information for SMEs on the impact of the Basel II Accord.2. Companies should be motivated to enlarge indicators that give banksinformation about their financial development. 3. Measures are required to improvethe financial structure of SMEs in Austria.