This analysis provides an overview of the main markets relevant to the EIF. It starts by discussing the general market environment, then looks at the main aspects of equity finance and the guarantee and SME securitisation markets. It also highlights important aspects of microfinance in Europe....

This EIF Working Paper elaborates on the most recent update2 of the EIF SME Access to Finance (ESAF) Index, a composite indicator that monitors SME external financing markets in the 28 EU countries. The ESAF was developed by EIF in collaboration with the London School of Economics. The 2018 ESAF...

This working paper provides an overview of the main markets relevant to the EIF. It starts by discussing the general market environment, then looks at the main aspects of equity finance and the markets for SME debt products, and, finally, it highlights important aspects of microfinance in...

This paper provides a pan-European assessment of EU credit guarantees to SMEs. Synthesizing past research, it investigates the firm-level economic impact of over 360,000 guaranteed loans under the EU MAP and CIP programmes from 2002 to 2016. These loans represented a total amount of EUR 22bn...

This paper presents the main findings of the Survey for bank financing to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The key objective was to capture the main features of the "supply side" of SMEs financing in the Republic of North Macedonia and to identify institutional and policy constraints of...

This European Small Business Finance Outlook (ESBFO) provides an overview of the main markets relevant to EIF (equity, guarantees, securitisation, microfinance). It is an update of the December 2017 ESBFO edition. We start by discussing the general market environment, then look at the main...

This EIF Working Paper elaborates on the most recent update of the EIF SME Access to Finance (ESAF) Index, a composite indicator used to monitor SME external financing markets in the 28 EU countries. The current update, using latest available data, constitutes the fifth iteration of this...

This EIF Working Paper outlines the methodology underlying the new EIF SME Access to Finance (ESAF) Index. This newly developed index aims at monitoring developments in SMEs' access to financial resources in the EU and is going to be periodically updated. It fills a gap as such an index does not...