13-12-2024

NEFI PWG meeting in Brussels, 12-13 December 2024

On 12 and 13 December, KfW hosted the last NEFI PWG Meeting for 2024. The first day was dedicated to Access to finance challenges for SMEs in Europe. A guest speaker, Mr. Gerhard Huemer, SMEUnited shared an interesting assessment of the main challenges for SMEs, which was followed by presentations from NEFI members. During the second day, NEFI members had the opportunity to exchange on their current acitivites. Many thanks to KfW for the excellent organisation!

03-10-2024

NEFI Held a High-Level Meeting in Sofia, Bulgaria to Discuss the Future of European Competitiveness

From 2-3 October 2024, the Network of European Financial Institutions for SMEs assembled in Sofia, Bulgaria, hosted by the Bulgarian Development Bank. Representatives from all 20 member organizations participated, focusing on key European financial and economic issues to boost competitiveness. Many thanks to Bulgarian Development Bank for the excellent organisation! Statement from High-Level meeting can be downloaded below.

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16-06-2023

NEFI meeting in Tallinn, 1-2 June 2023

The permanent working group of NEFI members met Tallinn on 1-2 June 2023 where they discussed the Smart controls and reduction of bureaucracy in loan and guarantee schemes. Mrs Liina Maria Lipik, member of the management board, opened the meeting with thepresentation of the wide range of activities and services of KREDEX and Enterprise Estonia for domestic and foreign clients. This was followed by the presentation of Mrs Carmen Raal, Digital Transformation Adviser at the E-Estonia Briefing Centre. Mrs Raal presented the digitalisation of the public administration, where 99,9% of public services are digitalised, including e-voting, and e-services for companies, that enables companies to be established in 3 hours. Two NEFI members, HDB and SBCI presented their digitalisation practices and Digital HUB. After the presentation and follow-up questions, the NEFI members had the opportunity to present and share their good practices and experiences with introducing digital solutions for smart controls and reduction of bureaucracy in loan and guarantee schemes in their respective institutions. Many thanks to KredEx for the excellent organisation!

20-04-2023

NEFI members stress the importance of simple and proportional rules to optimize the benefits of EU support for SME

NEFI high-level meeting took place in September 2022 and was hosted by SID Bank in Ljubljana. Presidents and board members of 18 European development banks and financial institutions, members of NEFI, as well as senior representatives of the European Investment Fund and the European Commission, discussed the challenges, opportunities and actions of NPBIs to promote green transition and mitigate the impact of energy crises for European SMEs, how they can be addressed in the context of the Invest EU, and the strategies and positioning of NPBIs in the new European Financial Perspective 2021-27. At the end of the meeting, a joint Statement was signed by all the participating NEFI members and forwarded to the European Parliament, the European Council and the European Commission. On the one hand, Statement highlights the contribution and the importance of the NPBIs in achieving the EU's growth objectives, the successful implementation of InvestEU and increasing the resilience of the economy hit by COVID-19 and the energy/Ukraine crisis. On the other hand, the Statement highlights the regulatory, administrative and procedural complexity of the InvestEU rules, the EU Financial Regulation and the fragmentation of the EU Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) and makes concrete proposals to improve the efficiency of the EU funding programmes. The signed statement can be downloaded below.

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03-06-2022

NEFI Meeting in Berlin

The NEFI Members met on the 2nd and 3rd of June in Berlin where they exchanged on the topic "Financial instruments for SMEs: What is needed for 2020-2030". The Malta Development Bank and KFw gave an overview of their latest programmes to support SMEs. On the 2nd day, the Hellenic Development Bank was unanimously accepted as new member of NEFI. We are very happy to welcome them in our network!

11-03-2022

First NEFI physical meeting after COVID

On March 10th and 11th, SBCI hosted the first physical NEFI Meeting since COVID in a hybrid format. The first day was dedicated to the digitization path that NPBs are taking to better reach their final beneficiaries. During the second day, NEFI members had the opportunity to exchange on their current acitivites. NEFI members had the privilege to meet the new CEO of SBCI, June Butler, who attended the meeting the two days.