Social Banking Program at Erste Bank

Erste Group helps socially beneficial businesses in Central and Eastern Europe during the coronavirus epidemic with interest-subsidized loan.

The Erste Group's Social Banking program helps companies in Central and Eastern Europe that do socially useful work by providing them with an emergency working capital loan at which the interest is paid by the Erste Foundation in 2021, according to a press release by the bank.

The funding option, originally launched in May 2020, aims to support non-profit organizations, mainly in the health and social care sector. In response to demands from organizations, the Erste Group extended the program until September 2021. Together with emergency working capital loans, the Erste Group lent EUR 14 million in 2020 to more than a hundred socially beneficial businesses.

“As the coronavirus crisis continues to have a negative impact on the operations of nonprofits, we decided to extend the EUR 25 million loan program available through our local banks. The interest on loans under the program will be paid by the Erste Foundation in 2021, as it was in 2020,” Peter Surek, Erste Group's Director of Social Banking Program Development, said.

“Erste Bank Hungary's Social Banking program is proud of its customers, who not only stick to their goals, but are also brave to do business in difficult times. As a partner, Erste Social Banking helped them with the COVID loan, which supported the organizations' finances with an interest rebate,” Orsolya Szalay, Head of Social Banking at Erste Bank added.

Socially beneficial businesses have used interest-free credit to provide support to the most vulnerable groups in their communities, even during a coronavirus epidemic.