The small and medium-sized enterprise (SMEs) will easier access loans from financial institutions. The Government instituted a new mechanism for providing portfolio loan guarantees, IPN reports.

The new regulations approved by the executive will enable to also guarantee loans offered by nonbank lending organizations. The financial guarantees are provided by the Organization for Entrepreneurship Development through the Loan Guarantee Fund. The Fund will be raised so as to ensure access to loans for at least 900 SMEs or twice more than at present. Also, additional financial guarantees in the amount of at least 1 billion lei will be issued and the SMEs will be able to implement investment projects to the value of at least 4 billion lei.

Currently, the state provides financial guarantees for loans raised by SMEs through the Loan Guarantee Fund whose task is to facilitate access to financing for SMEs that do not have collateral by issuing financial guarantees in favor of commercial banks.

The Fund offers the banks six guarantee products that cover up to 80% of the value of the requested loan. The value of guarantees varies from 500,000 lei for startups to 7 million lei for exporting companies. Also, given the energy crisis and the pressure of inflation, the Organization for Entrepreneurship Development in 2022 eliminated the guarantee commission (0.5%) on all the guarantee products and increased the guarantee maximum to 80%.

In 2021, the Organization for Entrepreneurship Development issued 468 financial guarantees that facilitated the disbursement of loans totaling 992.8 million lei and generated investments of over 1.13 billion lei in the national economy.