Europe Wants a Capital Markets Union. Crowdfunding Can Be A Catalyst.

The European Union published a “green paper” on Building a Capital Markets Union for the broader European community. The ambitious goals are laudable but the challenge is high. The report states that in comparison to the United States, medium sized companies received five times more funding than in the EU. This is a profound problem and is indicative of a broken capital markets and equity culture. In presentation delivered in December of last year Dr. Christian Katz, CEO of Six Swiss Exchange, stated that Europe faces a funding gap of € 2 trillion by 2020 highlighting a challenge as equity markets are not good at funding SME’s. That is big.