Tim za socijalno uključivanje i smanjenje siromaštva

Banca Intesa, the only bank in Serbia which offers business loans from the European Programme for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises COSME, expects that it will spend all the money it had at its disposal and plans to apply for a new contract. Two more banks should get involved in this programme by June. The main advantage for the companies is the longer repayment period without the mortgage, and somewhat less strict risk assessment. Businesses complain about the lack of availability of forms on the Internet and the lack of information.

Serbia joined the COSME programme in November 2015, with the possibility to use funds from January 2016; however, the loans for companies from this fund have been available since December, when Banca Intesa signed the contract with the European Investment Fund.

These loans are being approved under the access to finance component; this component has EUR 1.3 billion for the period 2014-2020 allocated for all EU member and candidate states. As previously announced, it is expected that these funds will enable EUR 21 billion of loans to be approved in all beneficiary countries, the average value of a loan is expected to be EUR 65,000.

The total value of the COSME Programme is EUR 2.3 billion, apart from the access to finance the money is being used for the support of the development of competitiveness and internationalisation of enterprises and promotion of the culture of entrepreneurship.

Written by S.V. taken from www.euractiv.rs