OREANDA-NEWS. September 19, 2008. With crop insurance season about to begin AB DnB NORD Bankas begins cooperation with the German company Vereinigte Hagelversicherung VVaG, reported the press-centre of DnB NORD Bankas.

The partnership with the sole crop insurer in Lithuania will open the possibility for the bank to offer better credit terms to farmers and agricultural companies thus contributing to the successful development of the whole sector.

The exclusive cooperation agreement stipulates that starting October farmers will be offered a professional consulting on volunteer crop insurance in a majority of AB DnB NORD Bankas’ outlets across Lithuania and present all necessary documents right there.

“We consider crop insurance as an important tool for minimizing operating risk and that enables us to offer better financing terms for farmers and agricultural companies”, – says Evaldas Ruzgys, AB DnB NORD Bankas Product Development Department Manager.

This summer AB DnB NORD Bankas started issuing unsecured credits to farmers and agricultural companies for additional working capital. The existing customers are eligible for unsecured credits of up to half a million litas, and unsecured credits of up to LTL 250 000 are made available to new customers. The maximum credit amount varies depending on an area of arable land and may reach up to LTL 700 per hectare. Buying crop insurance against yield losses will allow the bank to increase the credit amount up to LTL 900 per hectar.

Having extensive experience in financing the agricultural sector AB DnB NORD Bankas’ loans for development of this sector totalled LTL 551 million at the start of September. That accounts for about one-fifth of the bank’s entire portfolio of loans to small and medium enterprises. The Bank has been closely cooperating with UAB “Zemes ukio paskolu garantiju fondas” (agricultural loan guarantee fund) being the leader in issuing credits with guarantees of this Fund for the several years running.

AB DnB NORD Bankas is a universal bank, a member of DnB NORD financial group established by the Norway’s largest bank DnB NOR ASA and North Germany’s largest bank Norddeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale (NORD/LB). The joint venture has focussed the operations of its two founders in the countries around the Baltic Sea providing a full range of modern and top quality financial services in Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.