Helfen statt Blockieren
DEENES
Menu

Economy, Analysis

What does business need?

· Helfen statt Blockieren editorial team

Whether a small trader, a mid-sized exporter or a corporation: what firms need first is predictability. 83 percent of EU firms call uncertainty a barrier to investment. Then come payments that arrive, finance that does not fail because of size, and law that does not contradict itself. Data from the BIS, the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and the EIB show where things get stuck, and where an important figure is missing.

$2.5 tnglobal trade finance gap in 2025Asian Development Bank
41%of trade finance applications by small and medium firms rejectedAsian Development Bank, 2025
−47.1%correspondent banks in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2011 to 2022BIS, CPMI
83%of EU firms call uncertainty a barrier to investmentEIB Investment Survey 2025

Predictability before everything else

Every year the European Investment Bank asks thousands of firms what holds them back from investing. In 2025, 83 percent of EU firms cited uncertainty as a barrier, 79 percent the shortage of skilled staff and 75 percent energy costs. Just under half (48 percent) consider customs and tariffs a major obstacle; in the US the figure is 77 percent. 86 percent of EU firms continue to invest, but more cautiously.

What holds firms back from investing

Share of firms citing the item as a major barrier or impediment, percent; survey April to July 2025.

BarrierShare
Uncertainty, firms in the EU83%
Shortage of skilled staff, firms in the EU79%
Energy costs, firms in the EU75%
Customs and tariffs, firms in the EU48%
Customs and tariffs, firms in the US77%

Source: European Investment Bank, EIB Investment Survey 2025, press release of 14 Oct 2025 (more than 12,000 firms in the EU, more than 800 in the US). For the US the release gives only the tariff figure.

An example from North America shows how uncertainty arises. On 1 July 2026, at the first joint review of the agreement with Canada and Mexico (USMCA), the United States declined to extend it. The agreement remains in force unchanged until 2036 but is now reviewed every year. For a firm planning a factory for 20 years, that is a different risk from a fixed treaty. Mexico and Canada had supported the extension.

Money that arrives

A cross-border payment almost always passes through correspondent banks, which hold accounts for other banks. The BIS analyses payment messages via SWIFT: between 2011 and 2022 the number of active correspondent relationships fell in every region of the world, by 47.1 percent in the Americas excluding North America, by 34.2 percent each in Africa and in Europe excluding Eastern Europe, and by 19.4 percent in North America. In the Caribbean the fall was 52.1 percent, in Melanesia 62.6 percent. Anyone working in a small country, or one considered risky, therefore has fewer routes and pays more.

Fewer banks passing payments on

Number of active correspondent banking relationships, change 2011 to 2022 in percent, by region of the bank. Basis: payment messages via SWIFT.

RegionChange
Americas excl. North America−47.1%
Oceania−37.8%
Europe excl. Eastern Europe−34.2%
Africa−34.2%
Eastern Europe−34.0%
Asia−29.9%
Northern America−19.4%

Source: BIS, Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI), correspondent banking data, chartpack May 2023, table 2 (MT 103 and MT 202 excl. MT 202COV).

The G20 have set out to make cross-border payments cheaper, faster and more transparent by the end of 2027. In October 2025 the Financial Stability Board wrote that it is “unlikely” the targets will be met worldwide on time. According to the World Bank, sending 200 US dollars cost 6.26 percent on average in the fourth quarter of 2024, and 8.16 percent to Sub-Saharan Africa; the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10.c aims for less than 3 percent.

Then there is the financing of trade itself: letters of credit, guarantees, pre-financing. The Asian Development Bank puts the gap for 2025 at 2.5 trillion US dollars. It is striking that small and medium-sized firms, with 41 percent of applications rejected, fare hardly worse than large ones (40 percent); so the bottlenecks also lie with the banks, not only with the size of the client.

Legal certainty

Sanctions law is becoming denser. On 23 July 2026 the EU adopted its 21st package against Russia, with 218 new listings, the highest number since the war started, and transaction bans now covering more than 100 Russian banks. 27 of the newly listed companies are based in third countries, 14 of them in China. For firms this means that customers in Türkiye, Kazakhstan or the Emirates can suddenly be off limits. Since May 2025 member states have had to punish violations according to common minimum standards (Directive (EU) 2024/1226); in July 2025 the Commission sent formal notices to 18 states that had not yet transposed it.

At the same time, rules can conflict. The EU Blocking Statute prohibits compliance with certain US sanctions, for example on Cuba and Iran; the Commission itself wrote in 2021 that third-country sanctions with effect on others had caused “significant” damage to the EU economy and created legal uncertainty. What this looks like in practice is explained in 30 years of the Blocking Statute. Cuba shows how two hurdles combine: the US embargo, which deters banks, and the Cuban leadership, whose rules tightly restrict private business and under which Prisoners Defenders counted 1,351 political prisoners in September 2026.

What compliance costs

Banks have to check customers, screen payments against lists and report suspicious cases. That is expensive and often not worthwhile for small transactions. As early as January 2022 the European Banking Authority warned against “unwarranted” de-risking, that is, rejecting whole groups of customers instead of assessing risks case by case. Why permitted payments then get stuck and what a firm can do itself is explained in Why a permitted payment gets stuck and Over-compliance.

By size of firm

  • Small firms and traders have no legal department. What counts for them is an account that stays open, payments that arrive and an office that gives binding answers.
  • Mid-sized exporters need above all predictable tariffs and fast licences; every change to rules of origin or control lists hits them directly.
  • Large corporations can duplicate supply chains but carry the greatest risk from export controls on frontier technology and from countermeasures by other states.
  • Banks and payment services need clear supervision: when checking is enough, when refusing is mandatory and when it may itself be a violation.

Two readings

The case for strict rules

  • Sanctions only work if they are enforced; uniform penalties in the EU close gaps that allowed circumvention through individual states.
  • Banks’ due diligence duties also serve the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing; they protect firms as well as burdening them.
  • The Blocking Statute gives EU firms a legal basis for not following US demands on Cuba or Iran.

The case against

  • Stricter penalties make banks even more cautious; permitted business with small clients becomes worthwhile even less often.
  • The Blocking Statute does not protect against disadvantages on the US market; many firms therefore follow the market rather than the law.
  • Without figures on rejected payments, nobody can check whether the caution is proportionate.

Check the numbers: daten/abruf.py downloads the IMF, World Bank and uncertainty series; the extracts are in daten/ergebnis_*.csv, values taken from reports in daten/werte_berichte.csv.

This analysis is information, not legal, tax or investment advice. It reflects the view of the editorial team, presents arguments from both sides and makes no forecast of its own. “Helfen statt Blockieren” is non-partisan.

Sources

All online sources accessed on 3 November 2026. Secondary sources are marked; the figures there come from the publisher named.

To the situation report Blockades and the world economy 2026