When it comes to providing more diversified funding opportunities for companies and reduce their over-reliance on banks and public funds, it is clear that some operators and notably in the PE industry are outperforming in acting as the bridge between investors and businesses in need for finance.
Kazakhstan’s first President, Nursultan Nazarbayev, is given credit for being instrumental in helping to establish Kazakh-EU relations. He helped lay the foundations for the landmark EU-Kazakhstan Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (EPCA), which entered into force on 1 March 2020. The …
Discover what REITs are and how they span around the world. Fourteen European countries have already recognised a public benefit to incentivise real estate investment through public markets and have introduced REIT legislation to maximise returns through an effective tax …
Efforts to strengthen risk management in the banking and insurance sector were stepped up in the wake of the 2008 financial crash.
In 2014, the EU adopted the Payment Accounts Directive, aiming to achieve greater financial inclusion in Europe. However, millions of people in Europe are still unbanked or underbanked.
The German government should not use the upcoming national elections as an excuse to defer discussions over Greece's debt, Konstantinos Michalos said in an interview with EURACTIV.com.
Brendan Hodgson spoke to Anders Marvik, VP EU Political Affairs at Statoil to discuss the main issues currently facing the energy sector and why the EU matters.
In the EU, agriculture directly employs more than 10 million farmers. More than 77% of the Union’s territory is rural and home to half of its population. Overall, Europe’s agri-food industry accounts for 46 million jobs in 15 million businesses, accounting for 6% of the EU’s GDP.
2015 has seen high-profile EU initiatives in financial services, most notably the publication of the Capital Markets Union (CMU) proposals. But attention is also turning to the ‘consumer agenda’.
Taiwanese businesses thinking to invest abroad do not automatically think about Europe because bilateral relations between the two commercial partners have been low-profile, said Francis Kuo-Hsin Liang, Chairman of the Taiwan External Trade Development Council, in an interview with EURACTIV. “We need to push that to a higher profile,” he added, speaking in favour of a Bilateral Investment Agreement.
European Bankers and policymakers met at the 2015 European Banking Federation’s Annual Conference to discuss the opportunities and challenges in the digital transformation in financial services.
Is securitization a safe financial product? Finance Commissioner Hill argued that the European record on securitization after the crisis has been “much stronger and much better” than in the US, and that the Capital Markets Union will follow the advice given by the ECB and the Bank of England, “highly conservative and regulation-minded institutions”. The EU has a good basis to work from, he told reporters on Wednesday (30 September).
As Europe gets ready to unveil its Capital Markets Union plan next week, Financial Services Commissioner Jonathan Hill said he wants bank to play a “pivotal role”.
In April 2015, the European Advisory Council of Zurich Insurance met in Brussels, Belgium to discuss the challenges and opportunities of the European insurance sector.
“We must act now. Our global competitors are not waiting for us,” BusinessEurope president, Emma Marcegaglia, said in an interview with EURACTIV at the Invest in Europe conference on Thursday (26 March).
More than 2.5 billion adults lack access to formal financial services. But technology’s potential for financial inclusion and improving livelihoods is being heralded, particularly as mobile-phone use grows.
To help raise awareness on the importance of financial education, the European Banking Federation, together with its members in more than 20 European countries, organized the first-ever European Money Week from Monday 9 March to Friday 13 March 2015.
“I don't think the [TTIP] deal is going to be done in 2015,” said Joseph P. Quinlan, Senior Fellow at the Centre for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University.
In an exclusive interview with EURACTIV Romania, EU Regional Policy Commissioner Corina Cre?u explained her views on the Greek crisis, emphasising that the EU executive will invest in "projects that will create jobs." According to the Romanian Commissioner, EU funds "should go to those who are most vulnerable, people that are really in need".
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker last week provided details of his plan to mobilise €315bn of public and private investment over the next five years to revive Europe’s economy. Just €21bn of initial public money is intended to lift 15 times as much in capital, a leverage ratio that many have already dismissed as unrealistic. Juncker has cited transport infrastructure, energy efficiency and schools’ IT as among the types of projects he envisages the money being spent on.
On the evening of 26th November 2014, the Federation of European Securities Exchanges (FESE) and EuropeanIssuers co-hosted a prestigious awards ceremony to celebrate the winners of the 2nd European Small and Mid-cap Awards.
The annual conference of the European Banking Federation is a landmark Brussels event discussing key developments in the European banking sector. The conference brings together chief executives from leading European banks with EU-level regulators, policy-makers, and other stakeholders in Europe’s economy at large.
Robust corporate governance is essential to ensure that organisations are well-governed and sustainable in the long term – crucial to the long-term financing of the European economy. Following the successful agreement on the Non-Financial Reporting Directive the European Commission has now proposed a revision of the Shareholder Rights Directive.
Mid-market firms – those medium-sized businesses that are larger than most SMEs but smaller than the multi- national corporations that dominate Europe’s stock markets – are crucial to the EU economy. Research into this segment in Germany, France, the UK and Italy has consistently showed that the mid-market makes up less than 2% of Europe’s companies but employs about one-third of workers and contributes one third of private sector GDP.
