Summary
Access to finance is often one of the obstacles for businesses in Serbia, particularly the smaller one. The EU provides support to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) through a new initiative “EU for Serbia – financing for SMEs” dedicated to the Serbian companies Guarantee scheme.
The scheme is deployed under the umbrella of the Western Balkans Enterprise Development & Innovation Facility (WB EDIF) – a platform for cooperation between the European Commission and the Financing Institutions in the region to provide financing and support to SMEs, and their access to finance, by fostering better conditions for lending by financial intermediaries, such as better loan maturities, lower borrowing costs, reduction of collateral requirements and expansion of loans to riskier SMEs.
The European Investment Fund (EIF) will provide a direct guarantee enabling the selected banks to support around 1250 SME loans on favourable terms, such as reduced pricing, lower collateral, longer maturities or a combination of these. Access to credit and benefits to SMEs in Serbia will be improved by providing guarantees to eligible financial intermediaries to encourage them to build up new portfolios of SME transactions.
Over the next three years loans, five local banks (Raiffeisen bank, UniCredit bank, Banca Intesa, ProCredit bank and Komercijalna bank) will provide favourable loans to SMEs.
This programme will enable entrepreneurs to further develop their businesses and strengthen the Serbian economy.
Detailed information
About the EIF
The European Investment Fund (EIF) is part of the European Investment Bank group. Its central mission is to support Europe's micro, small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) by helping them access finance. EIF designs and develops venture and growth capital, guarantees and microfinance instruments, which specifically target this market segment. In this role, EIF fosters EU objectives in support of innovation, research and development, entrepreneurship, growth, and employment.
http://www.eif.org/
About WB EDIF
WB EDIF is an EU-funded initiative aimed at improving access to finance for SMEs in the Western Balkans. WB EDIF leverages upon expertise of 27 international, regional and local market players including representation from the countries themselves and is mobilising approximately EUR 650 million of financing and support for the Western Balkans SMEs. This financing supported more than 39 000 jobs in the region so far. The Facility aims to strengthen the competitiveness of the business across the region by improving access to finance at preferential conditions and offering advice, guidance and capacity building.
http://www.wbedif.eu/
Launching of the project:
http://www.eif.org/what_we_do/guarantees/news/2018/eif-wbedif-serbia.htm
http://www.eif.org/what_we_do/guarantees/news/2018/innovfin-credit-agricole-serbia.htm