Access of SMEs With Growth Potential to the Capital Markets

CONTENTS: The main aim of this paper is to contribute towards the debate on how to boost the funding of newly created companies and those with high growth potential through the market and other external sources other than bank credit. The debate currently revolves around four key issues: how to ensure a sufficiently wide investor base, how to overcome possible barriers which hinder companies accessing the market, the design of markets for small and medium capitalisation securities and the role of regulation. As is to be expected, the reflections on the use of tax incentives play a significant role with regard to the first two issues. In the third issue, the debate focuses above all on how to resolve the problems of visibility which affect the markets for small and medium capitalisation securities and whether or not an exclusively national framework is sufficient for guaranteeing growth in these markets. With regard to the role of regulation, the discussion focuses on whether it would be beneficial to adapt the requirements to an “SME scale” and the impact this would have on investor protection.