Member Article

Cultural and creative businesses missing out on millions in loans

Cultural and creative businesses across Europe are suffering from a mismatch in supply and demand in the loans market.

A study by the European Commission suggests billions of euros of credit is missed and the finance gap could reach €13.4 billion within seven years.

The study claims business with good profile and sound strategies are being turned down for finance because they lack sufficient collateral assets.

European cultural and creative businesses are shown to have a better-than-average profit-margin and solvency ratio compared with the overall economy

It was commissioned to inform the EU’s new strategy to support the cultural and creative sectors, which will include schemes such as Financial Guarantee Facility - where SMEs will share the risk on loans offered to them by banks.

To combat the shortfall, the EU proposes training financial professionals in the operations of the cultural and creative sectors, and support to improve business skills among those in the sector.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .