Patria Credit: a new agreement with the European Investment Fund, 9 months of healthy profits and agritech projects for farmers
Bucuresti, 5 December 2022. Patria Credit IFN SA, a non-bank financial institution part of Patria Bank Group, announces the signing of a new guarantee agreement with the European Investment Fund (EIF), îin a ceiling of 205 million lei, which will provide financing to small businesses îin an amount of over 256 million lei. The agreement is part of the new EUInvest programme, which brings together under one roof the multitude of European Union financial instruments currently available to support investment in the EU, and a continuation of EaSI (European Union Programme for Employment and Social Innovation).
The partnership with the EIF is in its 11th year, with Patria Credit providing farmers and small businesses with loans guaranteed in this way by the European Union (the guarantee covers 80% of the amount requested and has gone up to 90% during the Covid period), and throughout this period, an equivalent of over 112 million lei has reached local businesses through this facility alone.
The new Patria InvestEU product can be applied for by any farmer and/or small non-agricultural business, which înfulfills certain minimum conditions: it has a small business, with less than 9 employees, more than 1 year old, în any form of organization (SRL, SA, PFA, II, IF) and applies for a credit of max 120.000 lei (about 25.000 euro), which îl uses to finance the current activity, investment, working capital or mixed.
Patria Credit has înregistered a positive result în the first 9 months of 2022
„Positive result înrecorded în the first 9 months of the year, 5.5 million profit, actually continues the series of very good results of the last 6 years, confirming that if you îdo your job with determination, îin our case microfinance, and with the desire to be not only helpful but also relevant and topical for farmers and agriculture, with a team that has maturity and expertise, customers will appreciate and continue to do more and more business with you. And that's how the results show up, says Raluca Andreica, CEO of Patria Credit. „&dquo;Moreover, when you bring &dquo;into this ecosystem the right partners, institutional – such as EIF, FGCR and others - and private – agritech companies, input suppliers etc – it creates an enabling environment for farmers and small business development, &dquo;&dquo;&dquo;Moreover, when you bring &dquo;into this ecosystem the right partners, institutional – such as EIF, FGCR and others - and private – agritech companies, input suppliers etc – it creates an enabling environment for farmers and small business development, &dquo;&dquo;&dquo;&dquo;;first and foremost, and to provide them with specialised support in an increasingly simple, agile way, looking not just to the future, but to a more predictable future for them, despite the times we live in. A future with multiple opportunities.
&In the first 9 months of 2022, the profit achieved, of 5.5 million lei, was în accompanied by an increase in loan sales of +12% compared to the same period în 2021 and an increase of +21% in the loan portfolio, with over 32 million lei compared to the end of 2021, în while the quality of the portfolio remained at a very good level, with only 4.38% of loans înregistered înt delinquencies greater than 30 days.
“The new agreement with the EIF makes us all the more happy as the financing products with European guarantee are appreciated by the clients, the previously obtained ceilings being quickly exhausted, and an important part of our portfolio, about 112 million lei (22,6 million euro) and 2.452 loans, being financing granted îunder the EaSI programme and the new InvestEU. “
Supporting farmers in the transition to sustainable agriculture
To facilitate farmers' transition to sustainable agriculture, the funding institution launched the Smart Farm programme this autumn, facilitating access to new technologies offered by local agritech companies, with the aim of optimising crop output and making resource consumption more efficient.
Following the completion of the pilot project in Izbiceni, in which 8 vegetable growers, clients of Patria Credit, with covered crops, benefited free of charge from the installation in their solar farms of agro-meteorological parameter monitoring stations, made by Enten System, a local agritech company, Patria Credit launched the Patria Intelligent Farm programme.
“Through the Patria Intelligent Farm programwe are opening a series of partnerships with agritech companies to provide our farmers with quick and advantageous access to technologies that can enable them to obtain better yields from their crops, through careful monitoring and management of them and the factors that can disturb them. The best decisions farmers can make are based on data and figures collected in real time. And such information makes work easier and optimises resources, because a farmer will know when and how much water, sun or nutrients plants and soil need for a healthy crop. On the other hand, we will also have a picture of the crop and a perspective of the economic results it will bring, which will allow us to become quicker and more flexible in a new financing or credit line renewal. ”
A new partner has recently been added to Patria Credit's Smart Farm program, namely Field Data Zoom, the OGOR application, currently starting a new pilot project îin which 20 small and medium farmers, who grow cereals (wheat, corn, etc.), clients of Patria Credit and Patria Bank, have been invited. They will receive free access to remote monitoring of the cultivated area, being able to compare the crop on several plots and discover efficient practices and the right time for sowing, harvesting and work to be done.
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About Patria Credit IFN
Patria Credit IFN SA is a non-bank financial institution (NFI) that supports especially the efforts of entrepreneurs and private individuals and their positive impact on rural communities. Specializing în financing small farmers, Patria Credit is a member of European Microfinance Network (EMN) and Microfinance Centre (MFC) and is the first non-bank financial institution dedicated to microfinance in Romania, with almost 20 years of experience and more than 15,000 clients financed. Patria Credit's history began in 1996, initially as a program of the World Vision organization, later evolving into a foundation and then an NFI. Part of Patria Bank Group, Patria Credit IFN is involved in projects supporting agriculture, rural development and the revival of agricultural education, such as the Business Breeding, Mândru să fiu fermier (together with World Vision Foundation Romania), Foundation for the Development of Agriculture (FD Agri) etc.