In remarks at a Banco de España seminar in Madrid, Bank of Spain Governor José Luis Escrivá announced the creation of a High-Level Task Force on SME Financing alongside a joint initiative to develop a European securitisation platform, aimed at improving Spanish SMEs’ access to finance and supporting greater diversification beyond bank lending. The task force is jointly promoted by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Business, the Bank of Spain and the CNMV, with participation from public institutions, business associations and representatives of the financial system. It will produce an updated assessment of SMEs’ access to financing and develop specific proposals to expand financing, including drafting a proposal on the configuration of a European securitisation platform as a contribution to the European Competitiveness Lab. The speech also highlighted persistent access challenges for firms without prior bank debt and for microenterprises, and pointed to measures to reduce information asymmetries such as broader use of independent ratings via the Bank of Spain’s in-house credit assessment system (ICAS), alongside efforts to scale loan securitisation where SMEs account for 7.3% of Spanish loan securitisations versus 15.9% in the euro area.