SME loan programme: Federal Council increases guarantee volume

At its meeting on 3 April 2020, the Federal Council decided to augment the joint and several guarantees programme for Covid bridging loans and to request Parliament to increase the existing credit to a total of 40 billion Swiss francs.

Over 76,000 loan agreements

To date, the SME loan programme has been implemented efficiently and quickly. Processing via the banks is working very well: as at 2 April 2020, 76,034 loan agreements with a volume of 14.3 billion Swiss francs had been concluded.

Preventing abuses

The SME loan programme serves to support companies which are directly affected by the corona crisis and are facing liquidity shortages. To prevent abuses of the programme, the Federal Council has decided to develop further measures in the fight against such abuses. The SBA welcomes this course of action. The concrete measures and approaches must, however, still be examined in detail and if required, amended. The SBA in particular welcomes the fact that the central unit of the loan guarantee organisations is verifying all loan agreements to ensure the basic requirements are met and to check whether multiple loan requests have been submitted. The systematic verification of loans by linking VAT and other data is also expedient and important.    

The SBA remains in close dialogue with the authorities regarding the implementation of the programme.