Europe's banks skip capital subsidy for SME loans.

The article reports the failure by European banks to use a capital subsidy called the small and medium enterprise (SME) supporting factor (SME SF) that was included into the Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR) for their loans. According to the European Banking Authority (EBA), the SME SF reduced the total minimum required capital of banks. Also cited is the effort by the EBA to improve data collection on SME lending.