June 17 (SeeNews) - State-owned Bulgarian Development Bank's (BDB) National Guarantee Fund (NGF) said on Friday that it has partnered with the leasing units of local lenders UniCredit Bulbank and OTP Bank in the initial stage of a new mechanism to provide lease financing to Bulgarian micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs).
The overall financing amounts to 157.5 million levs ($84.8 million/80.5 million euro), the NGF said in an emailed statement.
Other leasing institutions are expected to partner with the BDB on the development mechanism, which will enable the agreement of leasing transactions worth a total of 315 million levs.
UniCredit Leasing and OTP Leasing will be able to support leasing transactions capped at 1.5 million levs, with the credit mechanism supporting up to 50% of the financed value of leased goods such as machines and equipment, vehicles or real estate.
The mechanism will also lighten requirements for own financing by MSMEs, thus facilitating access to credit lines that can help small businesses upgrade their production processes amid the current challenging economic environment, the NGF explained.
Up to date, the NGF has backed only loans to companies from commercial lenders.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)