Bank of Albania Governor supports memorandum on SME and farmer financing and urges banks to expand lending

The Bank of Albania published remarks by Governor Gent Sejko at the signing ceremony of a memorandum of understanding under the National Initiative for Financing Micro, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and Farmers. In the speech, he presented the memorandum as a framework for information exchange between public institutions and the banking sector to help design instruments that widen access to credit for SMEs and farmers, while stressing that smaller businesses still face more limited financing than overall lending trends would suggest. He noted that credit to the private sector reached ALL 907 billion in March 2026, up from ALL 575 billion five years earlier, with average annual growth of around 15% over the past two decades and ALL 423 billion in new credit extended in 2025. Against that backdrop, the speech pointed to the Bank of Albania's SME Financing Programme, which has been in place for more than a year to reduce borrowing costs, and the Albanian Government's Sovereign Guarantee Scheme for agriculture to mitigate credit risk. Sejko also called on banks to devote greater attention to SMEs, particularly agricultural businesses, without compromising prudential standards, and encouraged firms to work more closely with banks as financing providers and advisers.