This fragmentation is all the more troublesome in an economy such as that of the euro area, in which financial intermediation is bank-based for at least three-quarters of firms’ financing. And it penalises all the more those enterprises, often of a small or medium size, which depend more heavily on the banking system.
This is particularly serious considering that this sector employs around two-thirds of workers in the euro area.2  1  http://www.ecb.int/pub/pdf/other/accesstofinancesmallmediumsizedenterprises201304en.pdf  2  Eurostat defines SMEs as enterprises with fewer than 250 employees. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Banks are not lending for a number of reasons: lack of funding, investment alternatives, lack of capital, risk aversion.