The meeting was begun with the greetings of Mr Andras Nagy, Managing Director of the Zala County Foundation for Enterprise Promotion and was continued the following presentations:
o Opportunities in the microfinance sector in the near future, Mr. Miklós Kókai,
credit manager of the Zala County Foundation for Enterprise Promotion
o Introduction of the Széchenyi 2020 Program, Mr. Viktor Tóth, managing director of
West Practice Tanácsadó Kft.
o Call for proposals for SME sin the near future, Mr. Krisztián Horváth, consultant
of Széchenyi Program Office
In the preliminary presentations the professionals presented the key topic areas for SMEs
finance: microfinance (mainly loans) opportunities in the near future, tender opportunities,
and best practices of Széchenyi 2020 Program in the previous years and the related EU
directives.
During the interactive part of the meeting several problems and possible solutions emerged
both the professionals side and the SMEs point of view:
- Loan programs with interest rates 0% to 2.5% are too difficult for microenterprises;
the lead time is too long, red tape is significant.
- In business financing there are plenty of credit-worthy, but not bankable business
- Banks use the similar specific rating formula during the credit review and client rating.
That’s why so many high-potential entrepreneurs left without lending money, local
circumstances are not taken into account.
Local decision-making is important against the centralized, faceless decisions.
- Upcoming call of proposals will be accessible for the businesses with high sales revenue – mainly for the medium sized enterprises. In addition, there are further restrictions - the industrial sector barriers, ie, many applications will only be available for manufacturer companies, exception of free enterprise zones, however, these zones can only be found in Somogy County in the Transdanubian Region.
- From the enterprises side there are bad pattern of attitude (tax minimization and not tax optimization) which could adversely affect the decision making process at the bank or tendering procedures.
- In total: small and micro-enterprises will be out of the lending programs and the call for proposals, or they have less benefit from them in the current period
Discussed on the above, the following recommendations were made:
- The present professional organizations, stakeholders, financial institutions are trying to
create a cooperation in the field of SMEs access of finance and develop a common
financing (microfinancing) concept.
- The ATM project experiences must be presented to the decision-makers (stakeholders)
during the project period, than the possible suggested solutions have to be taken to the
competent authority and stakeholders – that is the ATM project objective.
- The ZMVA is currently working on developing their own micro credit scheme.
