The European Investment Bank (EIB) has provided Raiffeisen Bank Aval (Kyiv) with €12 million in guarantees for the support of lending to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
The Guarantees are provided under the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) Initiative East - Guarantee Facility, a programme that is part of the EU4Business initiative. The decision was approved on 22 December, 2017, the EIB said on its website.
The total volume of the loan project is estimated at €140 million, it said.
Raiffeisen Bank Aval was founded in 1992. As of January 1, 2017, Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI, Austria) owned 68.27% of the Ukrainian bank's charter capital, while the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) held 30%.
The DCFTA Initiative East aims to strengthen economic development in the countries which have signed an association agreement with the EU - namely Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine - by providing targeted financial and technical support to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in these three countries.