Financial Instruments Case Study

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Which financial instruments are equally applicable for cultural and creative SMEs and conventional SMEs?
Financial instruments have the capability to support and fund cultural/creative and conventional small and medium enterprises (SMEs), the real question is whether or not all financial instruments are applicable to all SMEs. A financial instrument is defined as, “a document that has a monetary value or represents a legally enforceable agreement between two or more parties regarding a right to payment of money” (BusinessDictionary.com). The different types of financial instruments can be viewed as numerous types of financial assets. Common types of financial assets can be categorized into bonds, shares, loans, and derivative financial instruments. Each financial instrument comes with its own risks and gains along with standard risks for all financial instruments. Each financial instrument has its pros and cons for supporting each SME.
The first type of financial instrument is the bond. A bond is “an acknowledgement of debt by the issuer; it represents a fraction of a loan issued by an issuer for which the bondholder receives interest (coupons)” (ING Belgium 6). The general features of bonds contain their markets which are primary and secondary markets. The primary market is the initial issuing market and the secondary market is the trading period for the bond. Bonds are given for a certain term. If a bond is cashed, traded, or sold before the end of the term, the bond does not have the same value at it would at full term. Bonds can be split into two categories; one is by issuer and the other is by the type. Bonds by the issuer are savings certificates, linear bonds, government savings certificates, corporate bonds, and eurobonds....

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...ock exchange. They can be tailored to suit customers’ specific requirements.” (ING Belgium 17).
Overall derivative financial instruments are valued by the relationship to interest rates and different financial values at the time. The different types of derivative financial instruments have their advantages and disadvantages attached.
One of the advantages of financial derivatives is there is numerous people keeping track of the price fluctuations and the trade. Another advantage is “derivative instruments do not involve risk…. they redistribute risk between various market participants” (Finance and Money). Another advantage is the amount of participants lowers the transaction costs. There is also disadvantages to the derivative financial instruments. The disadvantages consist of raised volatility, high amount of bankruptcies, and the constant need for regulations.

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