In an attempt to help small and medium-sized firms getaccess to financing, France's Autorité des Marchés Financiers on April 1presented proposals that would allow certain type of investment funds to lenddirectly to nonfinancial firms, the FinancialTimes reported the same day.  

The financial markets authority seeks to permitsecuritization and private equity funds as well as specialized professionalfunds to provide direct lending, while noting that the entities would be subjectto a rigorous authorization process to launch such services, the paper noted.