A total of EUR 40 m from InnovFin Fund for Serbian entrepreneurs - ProCredit bank in two months approves EUR 1,8 m, EUR 3 m more in process

Serbia is one of the seven SEE countries whose entrepreneurs through InnovFin should receive EUR 250 m. Last week, an agreement was signed on crediting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Greece, and as Borislav Kostadinov , Chairman of the Board ProCredt bank said for eKapija, Ukraine should soon be included soon as well.

- In the first month, we issued loans for EUR 5 m to banks in the region and the most interest so far comes from Serbia and Bulgaria and from production sectors.

Credits from EUR 25.000 to 7,5 m

As specified at ProCredit Bank Serbia, since March when grants started approved from this program, Serbian businessmen were paid EUR 1.8 m, while about EUR 3 m more is in the process.

The reason for increased interest in this program is that it provides access to necessary financial resources to those companies that decide to invest but do not have sufficient guarantee which could provide an investment they want to implement.

(Photo: Kzenon/shutterstock.com)

Minimum loan amount from InnovFin fund is EUR 25,000 while maximum amount for individual customer is EUR 7.5 m. Loans can be investment, revolving or for working capital, and the interest rates are much more favorable than standard loans.

Svetlana Tolmacev - Dingarac , president of the Executive Board of ProCredit Bank Serbia notices stagnation of loan portfolio as well as a slight increase in terms of corporate loans at the Serbian market. In total since the beginning of the year, this bank approved to small and medium enterprises funds higher than EUR 100 m and the bank is planning to exceed last year’s figure of EUR 248.5 m , or 88 % of the total portfolio of loans.

Commenting interest rates on loans to business , our interlocutor expects slight fall will continue but does not see much room for this since some “average interest rates on are pretty low ."

I.B.