On the topic of Access to Finance for small and medium enterprises, COPIE offers ESF and ERDF Managing Authorities the following tool: Manual on Access to Finance for ESF Managing Authorities in Europe

What are the regulatory challenges to the development of microenterprises and microcredit in Europe? This mapping survey presents findings on the regulatory environment and existing barriers to development of microcredit, microenterprises and self-employment in all 27 Member States of the European Union. It identifies areas in which the regulatory framework can be improved in each member country.

In many EU countries the market fails to provide adequate affordable personal credit to low-income people, who thus face a lack of service (where no sub-prime market exists) or an inappropriate supply (sub-prime credit with high costs and bad terms and conditions). In these two contexts, successful cooperation initiatives providing personal affordable credit have shown good results, both economically and socially.