EFSE DF will support Doğan Investment Bank in building a new digital solution for Turkish MSMEs 

The Development Facility of the European Fund for Southeast Europe (EFSE DF) has signed an agreement to support Doğan Investment Bank on the first phase of an innovative project to improve access to finance for Turkey’s thousands of micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) working with the country’s large online retailers. The EFSE DF will support the bank in its creation of  digital solutions and data infrastructure necessary for automated loan decisions.

While MSMEs have access to traditional banking products, this access is limited by their collateral capacity. New digital financing solutions have the potential to address this constraint by offering short-term working capital loans and receivable financing that leverage data to facilitate increased access to finance and represent a new potential channel to support the development of MSMEs across the country. 

Thomas Reker, Chair of the EFSE Development Facility, said: “We are excited about this new project with Doğan Investment Bank given the growth opportunities in digital banking services in Turkey. Small businesses are the backbone of the Turkish economy, and that’s why we firmly believe that this new digital solution has the potential to address some of the shortcomings preventing traditional solutions from serving more small entrepreneurs better.”

Hulusi Horozoğlu, CEO and Board Member of Doğan Investment Bank, said: “As a newcomer to Turkey’s banking sector, this valuable partnership with the EFSE Development Facility will help achieve Doğan Investment Bank’s strategy to create value-added solutions to the Turkish economy and business world. Thanks to the trust of EFSE in Doğan Investment Bank’s mission to support healthy and sustainable growth of Turkish companies by providing them tailor-made financing solutions, we will be helping Turkey’s merchants access to finance and to contribute to the strengthening of the e-commerce ecosystem in the country.” 

About the EFSE Development Facility 

The Development Facility of the European Fund for Southeast Europe (EFSE DF) was created in 2006 to support the fund’s development finance mandate. It deploys effective, targeted, and innovative technical assistance to maximise the impact and extent of the fund’s development finance mandate in target countries. The EFSE Entrepreneurship Academy is an arm of the EFSE DF that specifically focuses providing entrepreneurs with the resources, training, opportunities for financial backing, and other means necessary to turn good ideas into successful enterprises.

Managed by impact asset manager Finance in Motion, the facility operates independently from the fund in a fiduciary arrangement under Luxembourg law. The Development Facility Committee, comprising members nominated by KfW Development Bank, the development bank of Austria OeEB, and the Dutch development bank FMO, is responsible for assessing and approving all project proposals and providing strategic guidance to the facility.