PASHA Bank organized a seminar for representatives of small and medium enterprises

Seminar entitled "Access to finance for representatives of small and medium enterprises" was held in Baku. This event was organized by PASHA Bank and held with support of the Azerbaijan National Confederation of Entrepreneurs and Central Bank of Azerbaijan.

More than 60 participants took part in the work of seminar in the Hilton Hotel. Invited speakers - Head of Centralized Credit Registry under the Central Bank of Azerbaijan Elchin Habibov, Communication Specialist of the International Finance Corporation Rasmina Gurbatova, IFC project coordinator for strengthening the financial infrastructure in Central Asia and Azerbaijan Teymur Heybatov, manager of credit risk management Department at PASHA Bank Yalchin Abdullayev - answered most vital questions at the seminar regarding the development of small and medium businesses.

Participants of the seminar were introduced the methods of work of Centralized Credit Registrar (CCR), opportunities of access to the information from Registrar and other aspects of CCR activities, as well as the experience of IFC in support of the representatives of small and medium businesses. The representative of one of the largest banks of the country - PASHA Bank - presented critical information on the positive credit history and its influence on the business of the loan borrower. Participants of the seminar highlighted that event was successful and expressed their willingness to take part in forthcoming events with the participation of Central Bank of Azerbaijan, IFC, PASHA Bank and Confederation of Entrepreneurs of Azerbaijan.

As Yalchin Abdullayev told after the event, primary objective of his presentation was to overcome some stereotypes existing among the entrepreneurs from small and medium businesses. "I decided to focus on the fact that report from credit registrar, i.e. credit history of the client is important for banks - in a figurative sense it might be called "financial passport" of the borrower. However, this is not a sole factor that banks pay attention to. They are more interested in current status of the client's business, financial returns / statements and management methods, including management of financial reports. Unfortunately, many clients equalize concepts of accounting and financial management, and then they have to spend days and weeks on preparation of reports to be presented to banks. To speed up such processes, PASHA Bank always supports its clients and is ready to continue providing consulting services" - mentioned Mr. Abdullayev.

It should be noted that cooperation with the representatives of small and medium enterprises is one of new and key activities of PASHA Bank. One of the key targets of the Bank is to contribute to the capacity building and improvement of financial competences of small and medium entrepreneurs..