OREANDA-NEWS. February 05, 2010. The year 2009 saw total lending by Uniastrum Bank to small businesses climb 30% to Rb 500 mn, with some Rb 387 mn in loans extended under guarantees issued by the Moscow SB Lending Assistance Fund.

As of year-start 2010, Uniastrum’s SB credit portfolio topped Rb 4.6 bn, an increase of over 100% on the year-earlier figure of Rb 2.1 bn. Particularly popular today among Uniastrum’s small business clients is its U-Prime lending option, which enables borrowers to secure loans of between Rb 5 mn and Rb 20 mn for up to 10 years depending on the loan purpose at interest rates upward of 17.7% APR in rubles, or 14% APR in the case of foreign-currency credits.

In 2009 Uniastrum increased its involvement in regional programs geared to supporting small enterprise, signing agreements with the administrations of Saint Petersburg, Orenburg, Ufa, Rostov, Volgograd, and Arkhangelsk. This year the Bank plans to collaborate with SB lending assistance funds in the cities of Magadan, Nizhny Novgorod, Perm, Novosibirsk, Kaliningrad, Voronezh, Ivanovo, Ryazan, Murmansk, and Tula, as well as the Altai and Leningrad regions.

Late last year Uniastrum signed up to the Russian Bank for Development’s Government SME Lending Program, in line with which it has already disbursed Rb 25 mn in loans.

“For many sections of the business community, collaborating with a financial institution and the government is a matter of no small importance, which is why Uniastrum is committed to backing most government initiatives aimed at extending businesses beneficial terms and various concessions, as well as government programs geared toward easing the loan payment process,” says Igor Apostolov, Director of Uniastrum’s Department for Cooperation with Government Agencies. “One of our Bank’s core focuses is lending to small businesses, which explains why, moving forward, we remain interested in signing up to any program that seeks to further its development.”