Dear Colleagues and Friends,

It is our pleasure to invite you to attend the 15th International Conference on Credit Risk Evaluation Designed for Institutional Targeting in finance.

The objective of the Conference is to bring together academics, practitioners and PhD students working in the area of risk management. The conference this year focuses on New Credit Solutions for the Real Economy and their Implications for Investors, Financial Stability and Policy Design and will provide an opportunity for participants engaged in research at the forefront of this area to discuss both the causes and implications of recent events in financial markets and may, in turn, suggest fruitful directions for future research. The Conference is the fifteenth of a series dedicated to various aspects of credit risk.

The co-sponsors of the Conference are GRETA Associati (Venice, Italy), Intesa Sanpaolo (Milan, Italy), the European Investment Fund (Luxembourg), Research Center SAFE at Goethe University Frankfurt (Frankfurt, Germany) and European Investment Bank (Luxembourg). The Conference is organised under the auspices of the Department of Economics of the University Ca’ Foscari of Venice, ABI - Italian Banking Association and European Investment Bank Institute.

The banking industry has traditionally been shaped by the interplay between “innovations” and regulatory trends. The global and sovereign-debt crisis we have observed from 2007 and the harsher regulatory reaction have impacted on banks capacity and willingness to direct financial flows to the real economy in appropriate amounts. The result has been an extremely feeble, and slow “creditless” recovery, that not even the pursuit of a historically low interest-rate monetary policy and QE appear so far capable of influencing. The market’s reaction to this state of affairs has been to develop alternative or complementary ways to commercial banking to channel funds where needed, that is to households, firms and infrastructure projects. Examples are (i)  alternative financing solutions: mini-bonds, SME guarantees, Start-up and Venture Capital/Private Equity, Business Angel financing, payment-by-result bonds, securitization, microfinance and (ii) Digital finance like P2P lending and crowdfunding,  The European Commission’s with the Capital Market Union project plan to foster the diversification of funding sources for enterprises, in particular SMEs.

The organizers encourage submissions of papers on any topic within the overall theme of the conference and in the following areas in particular:

• How alternative and digital financing interplay with the standard funding channels?
• Are alternative financing and financial innovations socially useful and valuable in solving the problem of supplying “quality” resources to the most vulnerable, financially deprived (e.g. households; start-ups; young entrepreneurs) and growth-enhancing (e.g. SMEs; infrastructures) sectors of the economy, thereby supporting social inclusion, sustainable growth and employment?
• Do alternative and digital financial products and credit innovations offer an attractive risk/reward trade-off to potential investors, be consistent with their ALM requirements, yield expectations, risk appetite and wealth preserving objectives.
• What should be the role of the public sector in promoting the emergence and development of alternative financing channels for the real economy?
• What is the role of innovative monetary policies (QE) in promoting these alternative and digital financing channels for the real economy?
• Do alternative and digital financing channels pose the same or bigger potential threats to financial stability? Should they be covered by adequate supervisory frameworks, or else justifiably expect a more lenient treatment?

The final program will include both submitted and invited papers. Acceptances received from invited speakers include Philipp Hartmann (European Central Bank), Thomas Hellmann (Oxford Said Business School) and Adair Morse (Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley). The Conference will also feature a panel discussion on researchers' and practitioners' views of the major outstanding problems.

The Scientific Committee

Loriana Pelizzon, Research Center SAFE at Goethe University Frankfurt, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice & GRETA, Programme Chair

Francesca Campolongo, JRC, European Commission’

Marco Da Rin, Tilburg University

Helmut Kraemer-Eis, Head EIF’s Research & Market Analysis

Jan Pieter Krahnen, Research Center SAFE at Goethe University Frankfurt

Adair Morse, Haas School of Business, Berkeley University of California

Steven Ongena, University of Zurich, SFI & CEPR

Stephen Schaefer, London Business School

The Local Organisers

Davide Alfonsi, Intesa Sanpaolo

Monica Billio, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice & GRETA

Andrea Giacomelli, Knowshape & GRETA

Pier Luigi Gilibert, European Investment Fund, Luxembourg

Domenico Sartore, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice & GRETA