Financial inclusion

With a special place in the European financial infrastructure, Euronext has a responsibility to foster an ecosystem that promotes financial inclusion. Euronext concentrates its expertise predominantly on:

1. Supporting micro, small and medium sized businesses access capital
2. Facilitating retail investors access equity markets
3. Promoting financial literacy

Helping micro, small and medium sized businesses access capital

Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises are the backbone of Europe's economy. They represent 99% of all businesses in the EU. They employ around 100 million people, account for more than half of Europe’s GDP, and play a key role in adding value in every sector of the economy. However, access to finance is one of the most pressing issues for many of these enterprises. Through its specially-designed markets for smaller companies, Euronext Growth and Euronext Access, Euronext aims to bridge this financing gap.

Euronext Growth:

Euronext Growth is suited to small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) that want to raise funds to finance their growth. Listing requirements are simplified and reporting requirements are lighter than for the regulated market.

Euronext Access:

The first step for start-ups and SMEs. Euronext Access markets are designed especially for start-ups and SMEs that wish to join a stock exchange to finance their growth and gain the reputational advantages of listing, but do not meet the criteria for admission to Euronext’s regulated markets or Euronext Growth.

Overall, Euronext has provided access to capital to more than 780 micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.

Find out more about the Euronext Growth and Access Markets.

ELITE:

ELITE is the ecosystem for European micro, small and medium-sized enterprises that supports private companies in financing their growth. The mission of ELITE is to support private companies in sustainable long-term growth by accelerating their access to capital, expertise and networking opportunities.

ELITE combines a calendar of workshops and coaching sessions with a range of services and solutions for businesses, provided by a qualified network of partners and advisors. It supports entrepreneurs and executives in enhancing their skills, strengthening their strategic plans, and maximising business opportunities.

With over 2,000 companies and 200 approved partners since its inception, the companies within the network have completed more than 1,120 corporate finance operations, with a total value of approximately €13 billion.

Facilitating retail investors’ access to equity markets

Euronext’s Best of Book (BoB) service empowers individual investors by facilitating their access to the equity markets and providing the best prices available in Europe for their equity orders.

Our commitment to transparency and fairness ensures that retail investors can engage in trading activities with confidence. Unlike other platforms, Euronext offers retail investors a real price, since orders sent via BoB trade within the Euronext Central Order Book, where the liquidity is the deepest in Europe.

The BoB service has consistently demonstrated exceptional performance in successfully delivering best execution, while providing substantial cost savings to retail investors. On average in 2023, BoB delivered best execution in 98.82% of trades, and helped retail investors save €98.6 million. The BoB platform also offered a price that was on average €3.66 better per trade than the price available on the second-best trading platform in Europe. This is called price improvement, where the price achieved is better than the prices quoted by other venues at the exact time the order was placed.

Read more about Euronext Best of Book (BoB).

Promoting financial literacy

Euronext plays a role in promoting financial education and literacy to under-served groups. We believe that by enhancing financial literacy, we empower individuals and companies to make informed decisions, navigate the financial markets, and achieve their financial goals.

IPO ready, Euronext’s pre-IPO programme

IPO ready is a comprehensive pre-IPO programme designed specifically for businesses that want to take the next step towards going public. The six-month pre-IPO educational programme provides executives with the tools and insights they need to achieve the IPO successfully.

IPOready is available in Europe for companies from any sector, and is supported by over 90 partners and sponsors from the financial industry. More than 920 companies have already chosen IPOready for their IPO preparations. The vast majority of these are SMEs.

Euronext's ESG Reporting and Pre-IPO Guides

Euronext’s ESG Reporting Guide has been designed to help all companies, including micro and small companies, which often have fewer resources, to engage in climate change mitigation policies with the support of their investors. More broadly, the Guide covers the key aspects to consider when reporting on ESG to make the most of the associated opportunities, in line with the aim to limit the increase in global temperatures to 1.5°C.

Euronext has also published an ESG pre-IPO guide, a set of recommendations on best practices for ESG during the IPO process. Developed in collaboration with the Paris Institute for Sustainable Finance (Institut de la Finance Durable), the guide provides an overview of investor expectations on corporates’ ESG maturity during the IPO process.

Euronext Foundation

The Euronext Foundation aims to foster Euronext's support of local sustainable communities and projects across Europe in the field of financial literacy. It acts as an umbrella encompassing Euronext’s philanthropic and educational support via dedicated funding and volunteering initiatives. These aim to empower young people, promote sustainability, and strengthen our connections with local communities. Here below an outline of some of the intiatives that happened in 2023: