On 21 October 2015, QED organised a discussion on ” Common Accounting Standards for SMEs”. Olivier Boutellis-Taft, Federation of European Accountants CEO, spoke during the debate. The discussion was launched as the president of the European Commission, Mr Jean-Claude Juncker has made the Capital Markets Union (CMU) one of his key priorities for the new legislative term. One of the cornerstones in the CMU is better access to finance for small and medium-sized enterprises. Today, however, divergent accounting standards across Europe hamper the access to cross-border finance for SMEs. Nonetheless, introducing IFRS for small and medium-sized enterprises would be too burdensome. Could simplified, common, and high-quality accounting standard tailored to SMEs be a way forward?

Watch the recording of Olivier Boutellis-Taft’s speech below: