Alternative Finance

Thousands of startups, scaleups and small and medium-sized companies worldwide are increasingly finding capitals and investments from new providers, besides those offered by the traditional banking sector. These new providers include equity crowdfunding platforms, peer-to-peer lending, e-invoice trading, business angels, venture capitals, and several others, that are called “Alternative Finance” providers. However, it is often difficult for financial advisors, companies, intermediaries and traditional financial operators to understand how alternative finance works, what are the main differences between the various types of alternative finance services that exist and how to identify a specific Alternative Finance service that matches the specific needs of a company at the different stages of its development. The landscape becomes even more complicated if we look at the emergence of new generations of financial services powered by the Fintechs, i.e. computer-based applications, such as blockchain and artificial intelligence, and applied to financial services to enable secured transactions, issuance of virtual currencies, et cetera. Albeit this world is constantly evolving, its basic principles are relatively stable. Furthermore, the experience of benchmark countries shows that the Alternative Finance and the Fintechs are often surprisingly accessible to Small and Medium Enterprises, compared to the traditional financial services. Understanding and using adequately these new financial services is therefore important for both the large and the emerging businesses. The goal of this course is to help participants navigate the world of Alternative Finance and Fintech. The course is designed to provide both basic and advanced knowledge about a wide range of different topics: crowdfunding, invoice trading, venture capital, business angels, legal and marketing issues, risk assessment, the fintech revolution and implications for financial markets. The course is useful for a potentially large audience. It is primarily intended for financial advisors and business consultants, but it is also potentially useful for managers of funds and crowdfunding platforms, business angels and venture capitalists, incubators, business development agencies and associations. It is also potentially useful for entrepreneurs and startuppers, individual investors and policymakers that want to know more on these new financing means.