good.bee credit’s fundamental objective is to help improve the livelihood of people by facilitating the growth and success of businesses. We do this by providing micro- loans to economically active individuals and small businesses.

In the region of Tulcea, villages have managed to grow there flock of sheep in a way as to provide income and employement.

One of our clients is Vasile Grigoreanu, a sheep farmer in Beidaud, Romania. Vasile´s life as a sheep farmer started seven years ago when he inherited 40 sheep from his grandparents. Since then, he managed to extend his flock to 600 goats and sheep by taking out several loans. “Everything I have achieved up until now is the result of hard work and is thanks to your loans.”

Vasile is just one of the many villagers in the Tulcea region who contributed to the economic and social development of his village.

good.bee credit targets client groups having difficult, or no access at all to the financial products and services provided by commercial banks. Much of our credit officers’ activity takes place in the local communities, side by side with our clients and their businesses. This on one hand contributes decisively to removing the cultural barriers that often make small rural entrepreneurs and farmers to avoid banks.

In Matca, Romania, vegetable farmers took out loans from good.bee credit to start their greenhouse business, increase efficiency and produce vegetables in a biological and ecological way.
The credit group was founded four years ago. Since then the villagers have built many greenhouses and the vegetable production provides income an employment. In two to three growing cycles each year they produce all sorts of vegetables: tomatoes, cucumber, salad, radishes, peppers and – outside the greenhouse – melon, corn and other crops. They farm in an ecological and biological way with hybrids from the region and the Netherlands. One of the customers, Florin Pohrib: “The loans were really beneficial for us, we invested in greenhouses and sprayers. And from year to year we have made progress. We have succeeded in doubling the production surface in recent years.” With upcoming loans they hope to double this surface again over the next few years. Vasilica Apostu: “This is a very good system. Thank you very much for the help you have given us. We have accomplished a lot with the loans we have taken out!”

good.bee credit is our approach to microlending offering development-oriented financing products for economically active individuals and small businesses.

With a micro-loan from good.bee credit, villagers managed to open up two small grocery stores in Romania.

One of our clients, Nicolae Dragne used to work as an electrician until the company he was employed at had to let him go due to financial difficulties. In 1998 Nicolae took this certainly challenging situation as an opportunity and invested the redundancy pay, worth nine months of his salary, into his future. By opening up two small grocery stores in the village of Produlesti he became an entrepreneur.

When good.bee credit account managers came to Produlesti to talk to local authorities about potential clients, Nicolae got to know them and was particularly impressed by their professional way of working: “That´s how they managed to grow and get customers. Today they have many customers in the village of Podulesti.”

Nicolae and good.bee credit can look back at a successful and very satisfying common history. So far, the shopowner has taken out three loans from good.bee credit, enabling him to finish off indispensable construction work in his stores.

Coincidentally we visited Nicolae on a very special day: “Today I repaid the last instalment on my loan. And I am very happy about it. I am very happy about the cooperation with good.bee credit!”

With Dialogue in the Dark everyday situations will turn into a unique experience. Blind or visually impaired guides are leading you through completely dark rooms- an unforgettable and challenging adventure.
One who looked especially close at Dialogue in the Dark is Dr. Arno Maschke, lawyer in Vienna, who, as part of our support network, helped Dialogue in the Dark with his expertise in Company Law.

Access to finance is often cited by social enterprises as a main barrier to growth. It is important that they are able to access fully the range of financial products. However, good support is also very important- know-how, time and input from experts of all kind of different industries are often the key to success. That is why good.bee is creating a qualified support network willing to help our clients on a pro-bono basis.
Dr. Arno Maschke is one of our supportive bees having helped Dialogue in the Dark to overcome legal issues, which were important to be answered for ongoing and sustainable growth. Being an expert on the topic of Company Law, Dr. Maschke´s impact to our customer’s ongoing success was immense with relatively little time effort.
“Legal issues might appear very complex and time consuming to solve but if you find an expert from the field, it might not take a lot of time. If the question is about a time wise constrained problem, I believe that it is, also from a macro- economic point of view, reasonable to do something good and work on a pro-bono basis”, says Dr. Maschke. And he adds: “I liked the idea that good.bee offers “full package” support for its customers and acts as an intermediary and connector. This increases the chance for a successful and sustainable outcome. That is why I wanted to support this project.”

Sava Dalbokov, former CEO of Erste Bank Serbia and good.bee, and now member of the Management Board at Steiermärkische Sparkasse, was invited to give a talk at the TEDx Vienna Salon-Event during the Social Business Summit in Vienna.

His speech about Enlightened Capitalism and the four P’s of a caring company (Purpose, Principles, Professionalism, Passion) is well worth listening, but if you want to witness a banker entertaining a big audience, including a nobel prize laureate, make sure you also watch part two up to the very end. – Banker turned rockstar!

Owned by BCR, good.bee Mobile transactions has a clear objective: to bank the unbanked in Romania. good.bee actively promotes its service to those unable to access banking products, especially people in rural areas, enabling them to actively participate in the economic life of their communities. Its mission is to provide safe, simple, and convenient access to banking services for all.

link to the video

“Practically, we bring the bank into the pocket of the client, who receives immediate access to their money, anytime, anywhere. We have the satisfaction that in a relatively short period of time, over 58.000 Romanians have benefited from the advantages of good.bee Mobile transactions and their number is now increasing with a much faster rate” declared Cătălin Moise, General Manager of good.bee Service RO.

good.bee wants to support the creation and development of social entrepreneurship in Central and Eastern Europe. Through the local Erste Group banks we offer financial solutions for social enterprises with the help of our support network we offer time, know-how and experience.

Providing financial solutions for social enterprises is often not enough to successfully support the creation or extension of a social enterprise. A bee’s job is not only to collect nectar and pollen- it is the cohesion of the swarm, the safe hive and the knowledge and experience of supportive bees that finally turns the nectar into honey. Business development support to acquire management and financial know-how is the key for the creation of a sustainable and commercially viable social enterprise. This is why we constantly work on enlarging our support network of well experienced professionals of different industries and backgrounds that are willing to give some of their time, knowledge and experience to support our clients. Legal issues, strategic decisions and marketing issues are just some topics that were processed, helping social enterprises to take next steps and increase their impact on society.

And what is the role of good.bee? We act as an intermediary and connector, taking advantage of our networks, reputation and own experience. One of our supporter states: “I don’t think that a social entrepreneur would show up and ask for pro bono support from our law firm without the matchmaking of good.bee and I am very glad he made it to our office.”

If you are curious about what kind of work is done by our support network and how people with different expertise have helped social entrepreneurs to acquire the skills they need to become successful in their ventures, come back to the news section of our website for our bi-weekly stories.

Boris Marte – Managing Director of the Erste Foundation talks on how to design a financial framework for social entrepreneurship in the European Union.

link to the video message

Together with more than 520 participants from all over the world, good.bee participated at the  Global Socal Business Summit 2011, taking place on November 10-12 at Reed Messe in Vienna.  The audience was awaiting an intensive programme of talks, panels and workhops to encourage the social business movement.

“New ideas, inspiring conversations, hope for the future, great networking opportunities and innovative and encouraging contents” are just some of the answers provided by the participants to the question of what was on their mind when thinking about the summit.

In front of a diverse audience of social business pioneers from corporates, civil society, academia and governments, Andrea Pscheid, Head of Social Business of good.bee gave practical insights into the challenge of social funding in the social business focus group “New financing vehicles: Social Business Funds”.
In the subsequent discussion about different ways of social funding, participants of the workshop discussed about the lack of a common platform, lack of infrastructure and lack of awareness about social funding in general. Adequate to the overall atmosphere of the GSBS, complaints were not left unacknowledged and creative solutions to the challenge of a corresponding framework for social funding were witnessed listening to participants. A group of young businessmen from Bangladesh is, for example, setting up a social business fund, that is run by donations arising from a second conventional fund´s profits.

Good.bee, with its focus on the development in CEE countries and the combination of microfinance activities with funding of social entrepreneurs, is definitely to be counted as one of the pioneers regarding social funding.
This was also seen within the frame of the “Pioneering for results” speeches, where Andrea Pscheid was one out of seven selected speakers to present to the international audience about good.bee´s activities, success stories and future plans.
Consistent with good.bee´s objective to support social entrepreneurs, a participant from Columbia noticed: “We need to encourage the local people to help themselves. If there are a lot of problems, there are also a lot of opportunities.” And a potential social business founder from Haiti adds “The social business movement changes how you see the world. Just to see all those very diverse and international people attending this summit gives me hope for a better future!”

On September 14, Erste Bank Serbia and the Serbian National Employment Agency announced “supERSTEp.” Unemployed and educated young people with entrepreneurial ideas that are not feasible without financial help will be able to apply until 31 October 2011 for supERSTEp loans to start their own business.This pilot project was developed in consultation with and with the support of good.bee and bears its seal of approval.

Preferential loans will be granted by Erste Bank Serbia. The project is realised in cooperation with the National Employment Agency and with the support provided by the Ministry of Economics and Regional Development and the Ministry of Youth and Sport as well.

“The main objective of the project is to support and encourage young educated people to become active in solving the problem of unemployment in Serbia and to take their first steps regarding the job they choose” said Andrea Brbaklić, Executive Director of Erste Bank Serbia. “In the roots of Erste Bank, that was founded in 1819 as the first savings bank in the region, is the philosophy of open doors to groups that do not have access to financial services. We have found that young and educated people face great challenges when they want to start their own business and that is why we launched supERSTEp.”

In the pilot project, Erste Bank Serbia will approve ten “supERSTEp” loans for self-employment in individual amounts of up to 500,000 dinars to the candidates that have been selected. The repayment period will be 36 months with the possibility of a grace period of up to six months. The nominal interest rate is a reference interest rate + 6%; no additional fees apply. Loans are secured by blank bills of exchange, and pledges on contracts and equipment, in the event the loan funds the purchase of equipment
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In order to apply, candidates must be up to 30 years old, unemployed and registered in the National Employment Service or have applied for the allocation of subsidies for self-employment in 2011. It is also necessary to have a University degree. In addition to these criteria, all candidates must submit a business plan; priority will be given to business ideas that have an innovative character or contribute to solving a societal problem.

Erste Bank Serbia and the Serbian National Employment Agency will organise two-day training courses in Belgrade, Novi Sad and Niš for all applicants who meet basic requirements. Subsequently, applicants will be able to file a loan application with Erste Bank Serbia which shall make a final decision on financing.

For more details on „supERSTEp” programme, please visit

www.erstebank.rs and www.nzs.gov.rs