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Up to €20 million credit for Bank Pekao
EBRD/EU finance is latest for Poland's burgeoning small-business sector
Bank Pekao in Poland will borrow up to €20 million from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to lend in turn to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) across the country. The deal is the latest - and biggest yet - under the EU/EBRD SME Finance Facility.Pekao becomes the fifth Polish bank to borrow such funds, and Poland is now the biggest recipient of the Facility, which is indicative of a great demand for SME credits in the country, said Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, Vice President at the EBRD, who is in Warsaw today to sign the agreement.
Ms Gronkiewicz-Waltz praised Pekao's participation in the Facility because of its pre-eminence in the banking sector, its committed strategy to introduce small loans into its ongoing business, and its broad client base. She noted that the EBRD and Pekao have been partners since 1998, with the EBRD putting particular effort into helping small businesses overcome their main obstacle - lack of funding.
"The small-business sector is extremely important for us," said Maria Wisniewska,President of Pekao SA. "We were the first bank in Poland offering a service designed especially for medium and small enterprises, and now Pekao has about a 20 per cent of share of this market." The €20 million Pekao expects to borrow under the Facility is twice the amount other Polish banks have agreed to undertake.
Pekao, based in Warsaw, was formed in 1998 by a merger of Bank Pekao and three regional banks and is currently the principal full-service retail and commercial bank in Poland.
The EU/EBRD SME Finance Facility aims to provide participating banks in accession countries with sufficient funds - and skills - to lend to smaller businesses as a regular part of their on-going business activities.
Small-business programmes and micro-finance banks backed by the EBRD are making new loans across central and eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States at the rate of 8,000 a month, and have already surpassed the 100,000-loan mark.
Beyond small-business lending, the EBRD has all together more than 200 active relationships with banks in the region, and has invested in 69 banks in 21 countries.
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