IFC provides 35 mln euro to Garanti Bank to support small businesses in Romania

The International Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank Group, is lending 35 million euro to Garanti Bank, amount which will be allocated to finance small and medium-sized enterprises in Romania. Of the total amount, the bank announced that 20 million euro is destined to support enterprises in this categories run by female entrepreneurs.

It is the second loan taken from the IFC for supporting SMEs, following another 22.5 million euro funds granted in February 2012 which Garanti Bank used to finance over 160 such companies operating in retail, textile, construction or services industries, mostly of these, run by women.

“We support a more active involvement of women in Romania’s private business sector, which gives them more strength and capitalizes potential resources, which are yet unexploited, for further development (...) Our partnership with Garanti Bank as regards Romania is a guarantee of the fact that smaller companies as well as female entrepreneurs will continue to have access to funds needed for development”, said K. Aftab Ahmed, IFC’s Director for Finanacial Institutions and Private Capital.

According to the National Trade Register Office, there are over 410,000 women entrepreneurs in Romania, accounting for more than 36 percent of shareholders and associates in companies in the domestic market. The bank’s key-areas of focus in the field of SMEs include production and export, healthcare, agriculture and construction.

Garanti Bank’s portfolio comprises of some 25,000 SMEs as clients, this segment being one of its most dynamic. In the first quarter of the year, this operational segment recorded the highest increases, both with respect to loans which went up by nearly 22 percent and as concerns deposits which boosted by almost 97 percent.