(Digital) City Financing Platforms

This chapter introduces the theme of City Financing Platforms, particularly digital ones, as a new and important tool to support the development of smart cities, mainly smalw-and medium-sized ones which might have several problems in finding the necessary funding for their innovative projects. First, the role of such platforms is described, particularly as far as energy service companies (ESCOs) and project developers are concerned, who might benefit from such platforms to borrow money in the initial stage of their project and to find co-investors to support their activities, but also to get assistance by expert teams to make their projects financially attractive. Second, some examples of existing financing platforms are described, according to the type of financial services they provide. Some key points on challenges and failings are also introduced in the conclusions, in particular the need to support cities at local level which are developing smart city strategies and plans, as emphasised by many regional, national, and EU-wide programmes.