Access to financing for SMEs will be simplified

News On 20 July 2017, the Council of Ministers endorsed a draft bill on financing for small and medium-sized enterprises.

The law of 21 December 2013 on financing for small and medium-sized enterprises and the related code of conduct already include a number of measures to simplify the access to financing, such as the pre-contractual information and the obligation for the lender to seek the credit that is best suited to the needs of the SME.

In the meantime, it was found in the framework of the evaluation of this law that it should be adapted further to the observation of quite a few problems.

The draft bill aims at correcting these problems while pursuing the underlying goals.

The draft bill meets indeed the following goals:

  • Improve the pre-contractual information and the accompanying of SMEs;
  • Reduce the administrative burdens for the microcredits;
  • Frame the use of collaterals and guarantees;
  • Amend the system of the reinvestment fees by increasing the upper limit for their calculations;
  • Fix some technical imperfections of the law. 

The draft bill has been forwarded to the Council of State for an opinion. We follow closely the ongoing legislative process and will provide you with more details on the innovations brought by this new legislation.

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Leo Peeters

Leo Peeters

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