Unicredit has been awarded as the best bank for SMEs worldwide in 2020 by Global Finance magazine as part of the World's Best Global Banks Awards 2020.
The primacy of Unicredit, explains Global Finance, is mainly due to the use of guarantee funds to finance small and medium-sized enterprises. In 2020, the bank has disbursed more than $3,5 billion to 20.000 SMEs.
“Last summer (Unicredit, ed.) joined the Covid-19 support package offered by the European Investment Fund (EIF), which allows the bank to provide working capital loans to Central and Eastern European SMEs guaranteed at a rate of 80% based on simplified eligibility criteria”, continues the magazine explaining how the bank is using resources to support businesses in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia.
In addition, the bank led by Jean Pierre Mustier and the European EIF have agreed to provide financing for 237 million dollars each to support the digitization of Italian SMEs. “And in June, UniCredit signed the first tranche of USD 18 million in financing to help SMEs in Serbia improve the social impact of their businesses”.
“We are very proud of this recognition – he commented Olivier Khayat, Co-CEO Commercial Banking Western Europe of Unicredit – which confirms the exceptional commitment and dedication shown by our team in providing continuous support to our SME clients – the backbone of the European economy”
“We have a historic advantage – he added Gianfranco Bisagni, Co-CEO Commercial Banking CEE of Unicredit – thanks to our long-standing presence, a common group-wide service model leveraging a unique pan-European commercial network, a full range of corporate offerings, with a CIB fully integrated and an improved customer experience thanks to value-added services. We are engaging in decisive and concrete measures to be close to companies and ensure our full support to the real economy, offering continuous support to companies through different initiatives for all the entrepreneurial challenges that SMEs face, with tailor-made solutions for all customer needs".
