URSA Bank’s portfolio of loans offered to small and medium-scale enterprises exceeded 12.1 billion RUR on November 1, 2008. All in all, over 8,000 entrepreneurs have been given a total of over 10.5 billion RUR worth of loans since the beginning of the year.

The bank currently offers collateral loans of up to 30 million RUR to both legal entities and sole traders for a period of up to seven years as well as collateral-free loans of up to 600,000 RURto private individuals who run or own a business for a period of up to three years.

‘Loans to SMEs is one of URSA Bank’s top priority development directions. At the moment, we’ve got a clear understanding of the fact that this segment’s importance will only be on the increase in the near future. As for URSA Bank’s evaluation approaches applied to borrowing small and medium-scale businesses, these are closely connected with such key factors as the assessment of the customer’s paying capacity and the risk level. With these approaches, URSA Bank keeps successfully lending to SMEs even under the current market circumstances,’ says the bank’s Deputy GD Petr Morsin.