NEFI members promote access to finance for SMEs in Europe

The Network of European Financial Institutions for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (NEFI), which was founded in 1999, consists currently of 21 financial institutions from 21 European Union member states. In 2020, NEFI members actively supported and financed approximately 1,9 million SMEs all over Europe with more than € 99,5 billion of financing mainly in the form of loans and guarantees.

how we work

NEFI has two statutory bodies: The management of all partners constitute the High Level Meeting (HLM) and specialists in SME financing are represented in the Permanent Working Group (PWG), the main working body which meets at least four times per year. All NEFI activities are supported by the Contact Point in Brussels.

The main task of the HLM

  • Deciding on the prospective strategic focus
  • Mandating of future activities and new tasks for NEFI

The main task of the PWG

  • Making NEFI's expertise in financing SMEs known and available in Europe
  • Assisting EU-Institutions in developing efficient legislative solutions for SME support
  • Coordination of NEFI's activities
  • Mutual exchange of best practices and a platform for benchmarking

Topics of interest

NEFI pursues the objective of following the information of financial, political and legal developments and measures adopted by the European Institutions in the fields of European economic and financial policies which are relevant for promotional financial institutions focussing on the facilitation of SMEs' access to finance. NEFI serves as a contact for the European Institutions providing know-how and information on all promotional banking issues.

Ultimately, NEFI assembles the common specific interests of its members, which result from their particular legal status and function as public financial institutions, and represents them if necessary vis-à-vis the European Union, the press and the general public.

More specifically NEFI is currently concentrating on the following topics:

  • The new legislative proposals for the programming period 2021-2027
  • Sustainable finance
  • Promoting Financial Instruments as tools to facilitate SMEs access to finance
  • Innovation finance