The European Commission (EC) entrusted the European Investment Bank (EIB) with the development of the fi-compass advisory platform on Financial Instruments. The aim of this platform is to provide information and advice on the implementation of Financial Instruments under European Structural and Investment (ESI) Funds in the 2014-2020 programming period.
In autumn of 2015 an international consortium of researchers (Sweco, t33, EPRC, Infeurope and Spatial Foresight), commissioned by the EC Directorate-General Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO) and the EIB, in cooperation with the national experts from all EU Member States, carried out a study on the further development of fi-compass advisory platform. BGI Consulting team participated in the latter as national experts.
The purpose of the study was to identify the information needs of various fi-compass target groups (managing authorities and intermediate institutions of operational programmes financed from ESI Funds, as well as financial intermediaries, among others) with a horizon of the next 12 to 24 months. In particular, an attempt was made to identify the preferences of different stakeholders regarding the content (the most relevant aspects of Financial Instruments) and forms (the most convenient ways and channels) of information provided in the platform.
In order to achieve the objectives of the study, a survey of various institutions working with Financial Instruments in all EU Member States was conducted. BGI Consulting contributed to the study by supplementing the results of the aforementioned survey with valuable insights collected during semi-structured interviews with different stakeholders in Lithuania.