Tiberiu Moisă, Deputy CEO, MidCorporate & SME, took part in the ZF Bankers conference, where he spoke about recent market developments, the role of guarantee schemes and the importance of effective communication with entrepreneurs.

• You could almost physically feel the market restarting in May. The pipeline looks good; there are many projects across many industries. Starting in the second half of last year, we saw decision-making take longer. Entrepreneurs tend to postpone major decisions when they feel uncertainty or fear. They always see decisions as carrying a certain amount of risk. In recent months, many conversations ended with: let’s see after the elections. Now we’re waiting for the new government. But we’re seeing projects resume — a healthy buzz.
  
  
• People are regaining confidence. If we communicate better — both the private and public sectors — about what lies ahead, and if we convey confidence more effectively to entrepreneurs, things will go well.
  
  
• Most of the deals we see are new investment projects or project expansions. We’re seeing few new refinancings. The Micro segment and SMEs account for about 40% of BT’s lending to legal entities.
  
  
• Guarantee schemes must also be viewed through the lens of using public resources. So we need to achieve the greatest possible effect. I wouldn’t look only at financing needs, but at where we can best maximise impact, with economic efficiency. I like programmes for small firms and for large ones, but I’d make optimisations for greater impact. We should prioritise investment over working capital. A guarantee scheme makes sense if it complements processes banks cannot carry out, not if it duplicates what banks can already do. It needs to add something extra. Guarantee schemes should finance investments with visible impact. They should also be a catalyst for the economy. There are sectors that need 15 years to repay a loan. A guarantee can help here. The repayment term can be linked to the type of project. Future guarantee schemes should incorporate lessons from the past. IMM Invest worked well at the start, but then stuck with the same recipe; I would like the next programmes to be better targeted.
  
  
• The idea of bankability gets used by everyone in theory. The real number of bankable firms is higher than the number of firms that have loans. I believe we, the banks, could have done more to increase financial intermediation. We, the banks, are always more conservative. That probably limits the growth of financial intermediation. It is growing, but not optimally. Guarantee schemes can help here too. But it’s important to find entrepreneurs with a growth mindset. Not all of them have one. Many companies prefer to stay small; they don’t want the stress of scaling up. So financing and guarantee programmes need to reach the people who want to grow.
  
  
• No one expects miracles in the period ahead. People are aware we’ve gone a bit too far and that a period of adjustment is coming. I would put predictability first. I believe society has a tremendous capacity to adapt. And effective communication.