This survey corresponds to the first use of the " flexible module " established by the revision of the European regulation on the structural statistics of companies (SBS, for Structural Business Statistics, cf. regulation of the European Council and of the parliament No 295/2008). This " flexible module " has for objective " to have a flexible tool allowing to answer in due course to the new statistical needs due to the evolution of the economic situation ". The European regulation n°97 / 2009 of February 2nd, 2009 confirmed the topic of the access to finance for the flexible module in 2010.

The European survey "Access to finance (ATF)" was conducted in 20 countries (in particular Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain).