The White Paper prepared in the frame of the Altfinator project summarises the main lessons learned during the project, highlighting some golden rules on alternative financing. The paper focuses on introducing the European best practices on alternative finance, with special focus on the success stories of using alternative financing.
It also contains a concise report on the alternative finance market emphasizing the outlook on new fintech services and the main stakeholders on the European alternative financing market, and last but not least, it presents the legacy of the project in the form of the Altfinator Hubs strategy and the main conclusion of the project.
In this context, the white paper introduces the main elements and approaches of the alternativefinancing strategy, acting as a mean to establish an umbrella hub concept, which consists in implementing Hubs at national level – the so called Altfinator Hubs – as an space for sharing the progress, news and resources on alternative finance and its key actors aiming to support the growth of the ecosystem at national level.
Among the lessons learned collected during the project, the White Paper highlights the lack of regulation and trust, which relates with the need for raising awareness of the stakeholders, and enhancing their motivation for considering alternative financing as a useful source of funding.
Additional facts identified during the research conducted in the project are featured in the white paper, namely:
– There is no “one size fits all” approach, which works in each country to foster the use of alternative finance. Each country covered by the Altfinator project requires a different approach and different tools.
– Translating the best practices and applying them without modification does not work, as the economic environment is different in each country, therefore increasing the capacity of alternative financing providers have to be aligned to local specifications
– Traditional banking & finance institutions have high stake in the FinTech ecosystem; this group includes banks, debit and credit cards operators, insurance companies, stock brokerage firms, business angels and venture capitalists (VC).
Overall, the White Paper serves the role of providing recommendations for policy actors, SMEs and financial providers on fostering the use of alternative financing in Europe, and ensure the sustainability of the Altfinator project. In particular, introduces the opportunities on alternative financing, provides useful insights on the main the trends in Europe and policy recommendations to help the usage of alternative financing among SMEs and improve the capacity of alternative financing providers in Europe.
In addition to the key insights and results gathered during the project, the lessons learned and the recommendations, the paper also addresses the strategy for continuing supporting the growth of alternative financing ecosystems at national level through the implementation of the Altfinator Hubs.
The white paper will be published in April 2020 and it will be presented during the Online Final Event of the project on April 20th, 2020.
Author: Katalin Kovács, Innomine Group[/caption]