UniCredit Bank is participating in a package of measures to support small and medium market capitalization companies affected by the corona virus offered by the European Investment Fund (EIF), the bank announced today.
This will enable UniCredit Bank to offer working capital loans with EIF guarantees in the amount of 80 percent with simplified criteria for obtaining them.
The new measures will extend the applicability of the InnovFin instrument to large mid-cap companies, thus increasing the range of eligible companies, in addition to SMEs, and small mid-cap companies already covered by this instrument.
In order to support the digital transformation of enterprises and the growing application of digital technologies, the “InnovFin” instrument is being expanded with the aim of providing financial support for investments in digital transformation.
This initiative is funded through the EU’s Research and Innovation Framework Program, Horizon 2020 and the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), which is the cornerstone of the Investment Plan for Europe.
The new measures will enable UniCredit Bank to provide comprehensive support to companies in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.
UniCredit Bank CEOs for Central and Eastern Europe, Gianfranco Bizagni and Nicolo Ubertali, said the initiative offered continuous support to companies to help the bank cope with the liquidity challenges of the coronavirus pandemic.
“These concrete steps aim to guarantee companies the continuity of cash flow in these extraordinary and difficult circumstances, as well as to provide them with working capital,” Bizagni and Ubertali said.
They added that they are ready to contribute to a wide range of measures designed by European institutions and countries, and that this agreement with the EIF allows them to guarantee support to companies in Central and Eastern Europe.
In June 2020, UniCredit Bank had 30 guarantee programs in the countries of the Central and Eastern European region, providing financial support to small and medium-sized, as well as medium-sized enterprises in the total amount of 3.8 billion euros, of which 1.2 billion already used, Beta reports.
