The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) granted a EUR 15 million loan to Romania’s Banca Transilvania to support financing for local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) which are investing in energy efficiency and small-scale renewable-energy projects of up to EUR 1 million.

The loan comes under the EBRD’s Romania SME Sustainable Energy Financing Facility (RoSEFF), a financing program aimed at helping local SMEs cut their energy bills and become more competitive. Except this loan, EBRD has granted a total of EUR 60 million to Romanian banks participating in the programme.

“As the economy is gradually recovering, this is a good time for Romanian SMEs to focus on how to become more competitive, cut energy consumption and reduce costs. We are very pleased to expand our engagement in energy efficiency with another loan to Banca Transilvania. We are impressed with the response to the first loan and are confident that the bank has a strong pipeline for further successful energy efficiency investments by SMEs,” said EBRD’s First Vice President Philip Bennett.

The EBRD granted another similar loan of EUR 10 million to Banca Transilvania, in 2012, which has already been used. It enabled 34 Romanian SMEs to invest in improved energy efficiency and to reduce carbon emissions.

“The agreement with the EBRD today brings multiple benefits: for the environment in terms of lower carbon emissions; for the economy, by means of improved industrial competitiveness; for our clients, who can make investments that bring tangible financial savings, either as lower energy bills through energy efficiency or as revenue stream from renewable energy; and, lastly, for Banca Transilvania, because we are able to provide financial support to profitable and technically viable investment projects,” said Omer Tetik, the CEO of Banca Transilvania.

Banca Transilvania is the third-largest bank by assets in Romania and is listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange. It has a market capitalization of EUR 1 billion.

The EBRD is the bank’s largest shareholder, with a 15% stake. The International Finance Corporation, which is part of the World Bank Group, has also increased its stake in Banca Transilvania recently, following a bond conversion. The IFC now holds a 5.36% stake in the Romanian bank.

The financing received from the EBRD is the third large loan Banca Transilvania has received this year. At the end of October, the bank also got a EUR 150 million loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB) and in May it got a EUR 40 million subordinated loan from the IFC.

The EBRD one of the largest institutional investors in Romania. To date, the bank has invested over EUR 6.9 billion across 366 projects in the country. It has also mobilised over EUR 14 billion for these ventures from other sources of financing.

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Andrei Chirileasa, andrei@romania-insider.com