New European legislation designed to mitigate against future financial crises is likely to further reduce lending to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Northern Ireland and across the UK, says ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants).

The global professional accountancy body has set out its concerns over the legislation in a new discussion paper, Basel III and SMEs: Framing the debate.

Part of the European Commission's long awaited CRDIV legislative proposal, Basel III aims to strengthen the regulation, supervision and risk management of the banking sector, with the aim of mitigating or avoiding future financial crises.

Whilst the need for a new framework is recognised by all, both regulators and the banking industry have warned that its implementation will have a disproportionately negative impact on SMEs access to finance.

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ACCA has stated that an impact assessment is needed into how negative this will be and in what ways, which remains unclear.

Brian McGuire of ACCA commented: "The assessments we've seen so far are rigorous, but they lack detail about the impact of Basel III on SMEs.

"We have to remember that SMEs are the lifeblood of economies - after all, they produce half of the world's private sector output and employ two thirds of the global workforce.

"While we don't expect to get a definitive answer from an impact assessment, we definitely need more detail so we can understand the situation more fully. We know lenders have a limited number of options and there are ways of anticipating, from the characteristics of some lenders, their customers and the industries they work in, and which ones they will utilise.

"It is possible, with the right information, to map out how Basel III will be implemented in small business lending, and the impact it will have," he said.

ACCA will discuss the issues around this legislation with its global network of stakeholders before developing a second, more detailed paper later in 2011.

(GK/BMcC)