Financial Markets Regulation and Financing of the Real Economy

The debt capital of real economy enterprises in Germany is provided to a large extent by the banking system via credits, in particular to SMEs. This predominance of the bank-based financing is due to a small and medium-sized businesses structure of the real economy and to a structure of the banking market mostly oriented towards deposits-based lending to enterprises and available all over the country, including rural areas.

In the course of the internationalisation of the regulation standards, there is the threat of a distortion in favour of the capital market-oriented financial system. The European policy should, therefore, take care that the regulation regime will not urge the financial system into an excessive capital market orientation. Considerations by the EU Commission to establish financial instruments outside the banking sector cannot do justice to the problem of asymmetrical information prevailing on the credit and capital markets and hence not guarantee stable corporate financing. However, economic policy is called upon to more intensely put instruments of venture capital financing into the focus of the public funding institutions and their financial promotional programmes.