19/02/2010 (Agence Europe) - The European Central Bank (ECB) has published the results of a study on access to financing by SMEs of the eurozone for the second half of 2009. While half of SMEs reported an unchanged need for bank loans, a quarter of them reported an increased need and slightly less than 10% a reduction, compared with the preceding six months. A large majority (75%) of SMEs reported that they had received either the full amount or a part of the bank loans they had applied for, compared with 77% in the first half of 2009. Bank loan application success remained stable for large firms. The availability of bank loans to SMEs deteriorated in the second half of 2009. Forty-two percent of SMEs reported a deterioration (compared with 43% in the first half), while 10% saw an improvement in the second half (unchanged from the first half). The study is available on: http://www.ecb.int/pub/pdf/other/accesstofinancesmallmediumsizedenterprises201002en.pdf . (A.B./transl.jl)