The European Investment Fund (EIF) and Finansbank have signed two guarantee agreements totalling TRY 255 million (c. EUR 122 million) under the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP) helping to provide enhanced access to finance for Turkish businesses.

SMEs in Turkey could now have access to over TRY 430 million (c. EUR 206 million) of loans guaranteed under the CIP which will help to support existing and new entrepreneurs and create new jobs.

Thanks to the CIP programme Finansbank has now designed a new "Machinery and Technology Support Package" for Turkish entrepreneurs. As part of this package these medium to long term investment loans provide SMEs with access to necessary machinery and technology essential for business growth.

The second guarantee agreement has also led to the creation of a new product "New Companies Support Package" which will target micro-enterprises in their start-up phase.

Mr Jose Lopez-Romano, Head of Turkish Operations at the EIF, said "I am delighted to be here today to sign another two important guarantee agreements for Turkish businesses.

These two new products will be instrumental in providing entrepreneurs with new tools for their trades and we hope that this will lead to the creation of many more jobs in Turkey".

Commenting on the transaction, Erkin Aydın, EVP (Coordinator) Retail Banking Marketing at Finansbank said:  

"We are very proud to be the first Turkish Bank signing the guarantee agreements with EIF. It is Finansbank's mission to continuously come up with tailor made solutions to the financial requirements of the SMEs and to develop new projects for them.  

Our agreements with EIF will be a significant addition to our existing SME projects. With this application, we'll be solving one of the biggest problems of the SMEs when accessing appropriate funding, which is the difficulty of providing eligible collateral."  

 Source; EIF