Acta Universitatis Danubius. Œconomica, Vol 7, No 6 (2011)

Abstract

In the current context, marked by financial crisis, economic recession, lack of liquidity and low capitalization, the access to financing is more difficult, mainly due to the lack, insufficiency or limited availability of guarantees. Guarantee funds represent an innovative solution, proven by the European economies and recently launched in Romania. Taking over the international experience in order to facilitate the SMEs’ access to financial resources has become a necessity in Romania, which was reflected by the creation of three specialized financial institutions in granting guarantees domain. These are bodies with private or public capital, which relate, based on agreements with commercial banks. After a period of exposure to major risks from the lack of regulatory activity, the guarantee funds, along with other non-banking financial institutions are absolutely governed by rules of the NRB, according to the banking law and special laws. The analysis in this paper is based on the study of several official documents, reports of specialized bodies, statistics and examples of good practice, summarized and interpreted in through comparison and developments. The aim is to identify a number of issues that may lead to sensitize the responsible factors - public authorities, credit institutions, and specialists - to come up with new practical solutions that would stimulate the financing process of small entrepreneurs.