ArmInfo. The Converse Bank offers legal entities and private entrepreneurs to take advantage of loan payment holiday as part of the Converse SME product.
"Converse Bank, by providing this opportunity to clients, helps them, if necessary, quickly respond to business needs and meet the demand for additional financial investments without attracting new funds, just by taking advantage of the loan payment holiday," the report reads.
The terms within the Converse SME product are as follows: the loan size ranges from AMD 5mln to AMD 250mln or the equivalent in foreign currency; the annual interest rate (depending on the repayment period) for AMD loans is set at 11% to 14.75%, for USD loans 8.5% to 9%, for EUR loans 6% to 7.25%; The loan repayment period is up to 180 months.
According to the ArmInfo Financial Rating of Armenian Banks as of June 30, 2023, the volume of loans provided by Converse Bank to SMEs exceeded AMD 30bln ($78 million). In the total loan portfolio of Converse Bank, the share of loans to SMEs accounts for 12%. It is worth noting that in the overall market, lending to SMEs in annual dynamics noticeably deteriorated in growth rates from 31% to stagnation 0.2%, while only in the first half of the year it showed 12% growth, of which 7% were provided in the second quarter of the year. Given this picture of the annual dynamics of lending to SMEs, steps like the above mentioned opportunities by banks will allow growth to be restored to double-digit rates.
