The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) on Thursday said it and Intesa Sanpaolo Group were providing a financing package of up to EUR 100m to Intesa Sanpaolo Group’s subsidiaries in Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia to support SME lending.
The facility includes a credit line of EUR 50m to CIB Bank, Intesa Sanpaolo’s unit in Hungary. A part of the credit line to CIB Bank is denominated in forints, with the view to promoting local currency lending and reducing exposure to foreign currency risks for un-hedged sub-borrowers, the EBRD said.
The credit line for Intesa Sanpaolo Bank in Bosnia and Herzegovina is EUR 20m and the credit line for Banca Intesa Beograd is EUR 30m.
“At a time when businesses face growing difficulties in obtaining funding for their development, this project will help ensure a continuous flow of financing to small and medium-sized companies, a sector that has been hit particularly hard by the crisis,” the EBRD said.
The EBRD financing offered to Intesa Sanpaolo Group is part of the Joint IFIs Action Plan, a joint initiative of EBRD, the World Bank Group and the European Investment Bank Group to provide EUR 24.5bn in support of banking systems and lending to the real economy in Central and Eastern Europe.