Cristina Sindile, CEO BT Mic: We see more courage and ambition in today's entrepreneur.

Cristina Sindile, CEO of BT Mic, in her latest interview with Ziarul Financiar, talks about the role of BT Mic and Stup, both initiatives of Banca Transilvania Group, in their mission to support entrepreneurs in their early stages.

Interview figures:

• 30,000 loans have been granted by BT Mic in the last 5 years, all over the country.
• 8 out of 10 businesses take their first business loan from BT Small.
• One in 3 BT Mic loan applications came from online.
• The average loan is €15,000.
• A community of 25,000 entrepreneurs has been created in Hive.
• One in 3 products in the Hive is a digital product.

BT Mic:

• BT Mic's interaction with entrepreneurs is natural. It is a human interaction and at the same time efficient. We try to understand the business mainly as a perspective, future plans, i.e. how the entrepreneur thinks about implementing a development plan or how he sees the business scaling up. I don't think we look at a business differently than how lenders look at it in general, but I think once we get our information, the way we take it and work with it internally, the way we bring it to a decision-making level is different: we evaluate certain elements differently so that we can put a financing in a business based much more on what that business can become than on what it is at the time we analyze it.
  
  
• In 5 years, we have managed to provide around 30,000 market-level grants. We think that's a good number, it's in line with what we set out to do. But it's not just about the number of grants, it's also about how we manage to operationalise the strategy we have, which is one of access to finance and financial inclusion. Beyond these financings it is important to mention that 8 out of 10 businesses take their first business loan with us.
  
  
• 1 in 3 credit applications came online which is an extraordinarily good trend. We are present online, increasingly present online, and the company's development plans are in this direction because we see a growing trend of entrepreneurs' appetite to use online products and services.
  
  
• At BT Mic, an average financing is €15,000. But the BT Mic loans are all large, because their impact is very big, and that's one of the things we look at very carefully because we don't want to give loans in any way. We want to give loans that have real impact in a business, that bring added value, that bring development, but also bring the comfort of being able to manage that loan.
  
  
• With us, the first grant is just the beginning of a beautiful relationship and long-term partnership. We stay close to the entrepreneurs, and they in turn come back to us every time they have a plan, an idea, often just to consult, and if necessary for new funding. There are many examples where we have built this kind of partnership after we started our relationship with entrepreneurs (e.g. developing more outlets, diversifying the scope of work, etc.). But each time we are careful not to burden the cash flow, not to over-indebtedness; we are and want to remain a responsible funder

Stup: Every day, a business is born here

• The hive does pretty much all the things an entrepreneur needs, especially at the beginning. That's where the idea came from, to bring more solutions and tools in one place, to put them in a space where the entrepreneur feels comfortable, to come and find answers to the questions he has and to find practical solutions to his plans.
  
  
• In very concrete terms, if you have a business idea, with us you can implement it. We provide the necessary solutions to set up and develop your business, we prepare you for e-Invoicing, you can take an accounting service, we provide online visibility through an online shop or website, etc.
  
  
• The digital trend is well reflected in Hive. Here we equip businesses with digital solutions, and 1 out of 3 products is also digital, be it e-signature, digital invoicing, online shop, solutions that prepare entrepreneurs for a different way of developing their business. Depending on the type of business and the business and development plans of the entrepreneurs we can go further in building the digital infrastructure for the online environment.
  
  
• The need for networking, the need to meet with each other and take information and do business together is growing. This is what we see every day, in less than two years we have gathered over 25,000 entrepreneurs in the Stup community, more than half of whom have physically passed through.
  
  
• Every month a business is born in Hive. Looking at the businesses that are born here, in the first 2-3 months they already access about 4-5 business solutions. Start-up entrepreneurs find the services they need here. Accounting solutions, consultancy, especially consultancy in the tax area - which is very complex and hard to digest, accounting solutions, digital invoicing solutions, electronic signature. As businesses grow we move towards online exposure, marketplace, marketing campaigns - all the tools to help them increase their sales and we also come in with consultancy in other areas.

The full interview can be watched here. Enjoy ☺️