S Leasing Serbia (SLS), a subsidiary of Erste Bank Serbia, has joined the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)’s Green Economy Financing Facility (GEFF) as a participating financial institution. The GEFF in Serbia is supported by the Green Climate Fund (GCF).
A €10 million loan from the EBRD and GCF will support green investments in the country, through the EBRD’s Green Technology Selector, an online database that connects sellers of green technologies with businesses and homeowners.
While Erste Bank Serbia is a long-standing EBRD partner in the country, this is the first cooperation with its subsidiary SLS. SLS, which focuses predominantly on passenger and commercial vehicles but also construction equipment, is ranked fourth in Serbia by total assets. It will use the EBRD and GCF financing to increase its offering of green technologies – including solar panels, heat pumps and biogas equipment – to local companies, including small and medium-sized enterprises.
The technologies and equipment will come from a pre-approved list on the EBRD Technology Selector platform.
Aleksandra Vukosavljevic, EBRD Director, Financial Institutions, said: “The EBRD continues to promote green investments in the country and scale up financing to local businesses through its partner financial institutions. We are happy to welcome S Leasing Serbia as our new partner institution, and we hope that this project is just the beginning of a long-standing relationship”.
Bojan Vračević, Chief Executive of SLS, stated: “Environmental, social and governance principles are deeply rooted in our business philosophy, which is why this partnership is extremely important to us. We are fully committed to improving business sustainability and our support for projects that focus on renewable energy sources will be our imperative in the future. The EBRD and GCF support for green investments will be invaluable on this path.”
To date the EBRD has invested nearly €8.7 billion in Serbia in 340 projects, of which nearly 70 per cent supported private sector development. So far in 2023 the Bank has committed more than €680 million to Serbia’s economy.
Source: EBRD
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