OREANDA-NEWS. June 25, 2009. The Russian Bank for Development is calling for applications on participation in the government SME lending support program, reported the press-centre of RBD.

The Program is implemented pursuant to the Procedure of implementation of SME lending support by the State Corporation "Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs (Vnesheconombank)" approved by the Supervisory Board of Vnesheconombank on February 5, 2009. The given Procedure envisages that RBD provides resources to the counter-party banks for the following lending to SMEs.

The peculiarity of this new SME lending support program is implementation of the mechanism of refunding loan portfolios extended to SMEs by the banks. The obligatory requirement is that the funds obtained from the refinancing shall be used for the subsequent SME lending.

One more novelty of the program is setting regional limits that is to say marginal amount of funds for SMEs in a particular region. Within the regional limit a regional quota will be established for each bank in this region involved in the RBD Program. 

For more detailed information on the government SME lending support, requirements to the counter-party banks, regional re-financing limits, regulations on applications, including  credit application,  and other aspects of the program as well as forms of the documents see the official RBD site in section "SME Lending Support".