Wednesday, October 24 2012 21:28
USAID supports partner banks to maximize potential in SME banking
ArmInfo. Oct 24 the USAID Enterprise Development and Market Competitiveness (EDMC) Project held a presentation entitled "New Opportunities for Financing Small Businesses."
According to the press service of USAID, the event brought together EDMC's partner financial institutions - Araratbank, Armbusinessbank, Unibank and Goodcredit UCO - and representatives of the Armenian government an the international community.
Participants discussed a number of issues, including maximizing the financial sector's potential to serve small and medium-size enterprises (SMES), raising client awareness and financial institutions capacity to serve small business owners, as well as new opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises to obtain innovative credit products in near term future.
USAID/Armenia Acting Mission Director Conan Peisen and Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank of Armenia Nerses Yeritsyan delivered remarks, emphasizing the importance of supporting SMEs to boost innovation and economic growth in Armenia.
A certificate-award ceremony wrapped up the event, whereby over 60 loan officers and credit analysts from partner financial institutions received training certificates for the successful completion of EDMC- supported Financial Analysis training.
Sine its launch in 2011 EDMC has provided technical assistance to partner financial institutions to improve their credit services for small and medium-sized enterprises, operating in EDMC-supported sectors, and to address related gaps such as new product development, risk management and improvement of credit underwriting processes.