The agreement allows Raiffeisen Bank to grant loans with low guarantees to SMEs, on longer terms, and to offer support to start-up businesses, which usually have limited access to loans. Some 2,000 Romanian SMEs can benefit from these loans, Raiffeisen Bank said in a statement.
The agreement was possible with the support of the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), which is the central pillar of the Investment Plan for Europe (IPE), known as the “Juncker Plan.”
The EIF is part of the group of the European Investment Bank and its aim is to support SMEs in Europe, by enabling access to funding.
Raiffeisen Bank has over 478 agencies countrywide, serving some two million clients, among which nearly 100,000 SMEs and 5,700 large and medium corporations.
COSME is the EU program for the Competitiveness of Enterprises and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). It runs from 2014 to 2020 with a planned budget of EUR2.3billion. COSME supports better access to finance for SMEs, access to markets for SMEs, entrepreneurship, more favourable conditions for business creation and growth. The European Commission aims to promote entrepreneurship and improve the business environment for SMEs to allow them to realise their full potential in today’s global economy.