The CEO of Bank Sonic, Goran Gazivoda, and Tomislav Kovačević, the CEO of the Croatian Agency for Small Business, signed an agreement under which HAMAG will issue guarantees for business loans to small and medium enterprises, clients of Bank Sonic, thereby enabling quality entrepreneurial projects in cases where entrepreneurs do not have sufficient collateral instruments for loan repayment.
According to the provisions of the agreement, the amount of the guarantee will range, depending on the program, up to a maximum of 80 percent of the principal of the loan. Given that HAMAG’s guarantee is a high-value collateral instrument, the interest of banks in HAMAG guarantees is constantly increasing. Last year, the Agency approved guarantees amounting to 145 million kuna, enabling over 374 million kuna in investments in the Croatian economy.
– The goal of the cooperation between our bank and HAMAG is simpler financing of quality entrepreneurial projects. With this, we are one step closer to achieving the goal set for this year, which is to become a universal bank in the true sense of the word through the development of business with legal entities. In this, we have the unwavering support of the strong banking group to which we belong, Banco Popolare di Verona e Novara – said Gazivoda.
Ivan Bračić, assistant minister of economy, labor, and entrepreneurship, stated that in the past two years, his ministry, together with HAMAG, commercial banks, and counties, has allocated 4 billion kuna in loans to small businesses at an interest rate of two to four percent. (Renato Đurđević)
