To additionally facilitate access to finance for Croatian entrepreneurs HBOR condensed its existing 25 loan programs into 9 loan programs that contain all current benefits and introduce some new ones.

Market-competitive entrepreneurs engaged in activities of special interest – agriculture and fisheries, processing industry or computer programming – can fund their investments at an interest rate of 1.5 percent as of now with the possibility of additional reductions of 0.2 p.p. for youth employment and up to 0.572 p.p. for innovative entrepreneurs (according to InnovFin criteria), which means that the interest rate charged to these entrepreneurs can equal 0.728 percent. Under the Pre-Export Finance loan program, the interest rate can be as low as 1.75 percent. The interest rate charged on working capital loans has been reduced to 3.5 percent for long-term loans and to 2 percent for short-term loans, whereas the public sector can borrow funds for investment finance at interest rates of 1.75 percent or 2 percent without a commitment fee charged. The implementation of financial instruments for rural development and energy efficiency has been announced.

“Amendments to the loan programs we introduce today will result in interest rates below 2 percent being available to a large number of our entrepreneurs. This relates to HBOR’s loans and to financial instruments we implement.” pointed out Tamara Perko, President of HBOR’s Management Board. She stressed that HBOR’s focus in the coming period would be on the development of new products, such as venture capital funding.

After ESIF Venture capital fund intended to start-up companies and investments in early stage of operations has become active in mid-2019, the selection of a company to manage the CROGIP funds has been announced to take place at the end of the year. It is a joint initiative of the EIB and HBOR, which has launched a program for promoting investments in the capital of small and medium-sized and mid-cap companies with up to 3,000 employees that are not start-ups.