YEREVAN, February 25, /ARKA/. Armenian Inecobank said it is launching in collaboration with USAID FS Share Program a new product targeted at SMEs in production, service and trade sectors.

The purpose of the program is to assist small and medium-sized enterprises to increase their sales volumes via enhancing the use of short term working capital finance products using a value chain finance approach.

This service is called Purchase Order Finance (POF), which is a form of pre-shipment working capital /trade finance secured by a verified purchase order or sales contract. Via this service the bank provides the advance pre-shipment, so that its clients can purchase raw materials, inputs, packaging, goods for resale etc, and/or cover other expenses necessary for the execution or delivery of a product or service, e.g. salaries, shipment etc.

Inecobank plans to start implementing POF within two months and will invest up to USD 5mln funds for the implementation of this program. Within the framework of this program the bank will provide purchase order financing to SMSs from the following value chains: Information and Communications Technology, Health Care, Tourism and Hospitality, Food processing and Agriculture,Trade and Retail. Inecobank was founded in 1996.

The bank’s shareholders include IFC (10 percent shares) and DEG (13.5 percent shares), K. Safarian -32.3%, Baloyan A.-37.14%. It partners with reputable international organizations such as EBRD, KfW Bankengruppe, the OPEC Fund for International Development, and the Asian Development Bank. According to ARKA’s data, its assets last year amounted to 48.5 billion Drams, liabilities to 38.3 billion Drams, its aggregate capital rose to 10.2 billion Drams, credit investments to 26.2 billion Drams, liabilities to clients to 16.9 billion Drams and its net profit totaled 895.1 Drams.($1- 382.41 Drams). -0-