Bankera, a Lithuanian fintech startup, has started to offer business loans for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The model for Bankera Business Loans was developed at the European Commission hackathon as a response to COVID-19 back in April. Despite the easing of restrictions necessary to stop the spread of COVID-19 around Europe, most SMEs are still at risk.

In less than 3 months, the team behind the project was able to fully implement the lending solution which ultimately aims to aid a market segment that has been underserved by legacy banks. The solution accepts supplier’s guarantee as additional collateral.

Also, by bringing both parties of the transaction to the table, Bankera, as a lender, can make a more informed lending decision, which is in the interest of all the parties involved.

“We aim to help emerging digital businesses to deal with their financial needs from payments to financing. Therefore, we launched Bankera loans product at this time, not only to help businesses to survive the distress caused by the pandemic, but especially to capture new opportunities as lockdowns have also boosted the digital shift of the economy,”

says Vytautas Karalevicius, the co-founder of Bankera.

The range of Bankera Business Loans services includes business invoice financing (factoring), refinancing, along with short-term lending services that aim to relieve business development or digitisation costs.

Interest rates are determined for each loan individually by evaluating a variety of variables during the application procedure. Loans range from 2,000 to 50,000 EUR and are offered for a maximum period of 2 years with a possibility to postpone the payment.

For now, it is available for Lithuanian based businesses only. However, on a case-by-case basis and depending on their business model companies and freelancers across Europe would be considered for a loan.

In addition to new business loans offering, Bankera is already providing individual and businesses multi-currency accounts, payment processing services and is planning to introduce payment cards by the end of this year.