The hotlines of the state Funding agency Austria Wirtschaftsservice GmbH (aws) received thousands of calls from entrepreneurs in April that reported problems with their house bank and bureaucracy. The news magazine “profil” reports citing confidential Weekly reports the aws to finance minister Gernot Blümel (ÖVP) for calendar weeks 16 to 18.
During this period (April), more than 5,000 callers answered, almost 50 percent of whom complained about difficulties in granting loans. Around a third complained about the bureaucratic effort to obtain the aws bridging guarantees.
Delivered
The complaints are cursively cited in the reports according to “profil”: “Entrepreneurs sometimes feel that they are ‘delivered’ to the banks; no lending despite all the prerequisites for an AWS guarantee being met; lending only with additional collateral despite a 100% AWS guarantee; lending only with additional processing fees; difficulties in using the existing tools provided correctly – only possible for many with the help of tax consultants, “says.
Fast processing expected
“The feedback coincides with feedback that we have received in the past few weeks from the business world and, unfortunately, still partially received,” said a spokesman for Flower to the magazine. Even if the situation regarding lending has improved significantly recently, “we expect the banks to process the bureaucratic quickly and unbureaucratically so that the government-guaranteed loans reach the companies quickly”.
Franz Rudorfer, Managing Director of the Federal Bank and Insurance Division of the Chamber of Commerce, made a reference to the “profil” to the complexity of the guarantee instruments and regulatory requirements. “Overall, in some cases this actually meant that the desired funding could not be granted as quickly as expected.” The banking industry is doing everything it can to process applications as quickly as possible.
1.9 billion
According to aws, 8,400 companies have now received 1.9 billion euros in loans through the state aid program (aws guaranteed volume: 1.6 billion). A further 730 applications with a guaranteed volume of EUR 320 million were processed last week.
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