Market Gaps on Access to Finance - Bank of Valletta

6.3.6.5 Credit guarantees: In many countries, credit guarantees are emerging as a strong lever to
address declining bank credit. In order to address the gap between expectations for bank
credit and the willingness of banks to finance small enterprise, there is significant potential
for public credit guarantees of subsidies. Indeed, all mature economies have established
publicly funded guarantee schemes for SMEs. These schemes not only provide a direct
financing guarantee to the borrower, but also help to share information, advice and
monitoring, to foster the interaction between banks and SMEs 141 .
6.3.6.6 Alternative markets: The success of several junior stock markets, led by the AIM (London
Stock Exchange), illustrates that having such an alternative source of liquidity for small size
companies is a leading government practice in fostering those companies’ expansion 142 .
141 Ernst & Young (2012), Entrepreneurs speak out
142 Ibid
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