OREANDA-NEWS. June 27, 2014. SME Bank awarded Bank Vozrozhdenie for the active promotion of the federal guarantee mechanism of medium business support.

Traditionally, small- and mid-sized companies face lack of liquid collateral while raising funds from banks. Helping its borrowers to solve this problem, Bank Vozrozhdenie regularly uses state guarantee instruments, particularly the bank cooperates with the regional guarantee funds in its operations areas. Funds’ guarantees allow SMEs to obtain loans up to RUB50-80 mln. V.Bank’s portfolio of loans partially collateralized by funds’ guarantees exceeded RUB4 bln as of June 1, 2014.

“The market was in acute need of a guarantee instrument able to support large investment projects, as the regional funds are not always in a position to meet the demand from fast-growing enterprises”, — comments Mrs. Lyudmila Goncharova, Deputy Chairwoman of the Management Board.

Bank Vozrozhdenie, as one of the leaders on the SME lending market, actively participated in development of the federal guarantee mechanism and in August, 2013 became the first in the country to offer a loan to the company LLC “Isratech”, using a guarantee of SME Bank. Today, the bank widely uses this instrument, including along with SME Bank’s credit product “SME — Manoeuvre”, which generates synergies and allows small- and mid-sized companies to enjoy even more appealing lending conditions of investment loans.

“Importantly, the state support increasingly contributes to investment projects, inspiring SMEs to develop their businesses. We strive to employ the most advanced and effective instruments of government support in the course of work with small and medium enterprises — our core client segment, offering them the most comfortable financing conditions. We gratefully appreciate the work of SME Bank — the key player in the market of state support, whose cooperativeness and effectiveness provides companies with easier access to financial sources. We are proud of the award confirming the efficiency of the adopted business-model of collaboration with the government on issues of SME lending”, — noticed Mrs. Lyudmila Goncharova.

Amid expansion of the range of guarantee instruments targeted at small and medium businesses, the bank plans to enter into cooperation agreement with the newly established Agency for Credit Guarantees in the near term. Its main function will be providing direct guarantees on bank loans as well as counter-guarantees to regional guarantee funds to increase amounts of their guarantees.