- EBRD provides €50 million loan to TEB to support MSMEs across Türkiye
- Project focuses on expanding opportunities for women under the EBRD’s Women in Business framework
- Seventy per cent of lending to go to MSMEs outside Türkiye’s major cities
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is providing €50 million to Türkiye’s Türk Ekonomi Bankası A.Ş. (TEB) to strengthen the role played by women‑owned and ‑led micro, small and medium‑sized enterprises (MSMEs) in the Turkish economy.
The loan is being extended under the Bank’s flagship €600 million Türkiye Women in Business II programme, aiming to help women‑owned or ‑managed businesses gain access to financial and non‑financial services.
Increasing women’s employment in Türkiye presents a major opportunity to boost economic growth and competitiveness, reduce inequalities, and support social inclusion and sustainable development. Although women make up nearly half of Türkiye’s population, their labour-force participation rate is among the lowest of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.
This new transaction seeks to address these gaps by directing at least 70 per cent of the ensuing lending to women‑led MSMEs outside major cities and 35 per cent to new clients.
TEB is an existing EBRD partner, having participated in several financing programmes in the past. Building on this track record, TEB sought additional financial resources from the EBRD to scale up its SME portfolio and further grow its reach among underserved women‑owned businesses.
Oksana Yavorskaya, EBRD Deputy Head of Türkiye, said: “Expanding economic opportunities for women is central to Türkiye’s long term growth. Through this new financing, we are deepening our partnership with TEB to ensure more women led businesses, especially those outside major cities, gain the resources they need to invest, innovate and thrive.”
Gökhan Mendi, TEB Senior Assistant General Manager of Retail and Private Banking, said: “The increased participation of women in the economy and workforce is of vital importance to our country in order to achieve sustainable development. In this regard, it is essential to increase the number of women entrepreneurs and business owners while supporting their access to finance.
At TEB, we have been working on this for a long time. Leading our sector, we have been developing specialised products and services for women entrepreneurs and business owners through the Women’s Banking initiative, which it launched in 2015. It aims to support women in unlocking their economic potential by facilitating their access to financing.”
The EBRD is one of Türkiye’s key institutional investors, having committed almost €23.9 billion across the country since 2009, largely in the private sector.