What Social Banking Can Do
ERSTE Foundation has long promoted the development and expansion of social banking services to solve social challenges in Central and Eastern Europe. As the main shareholder of Erste Group, one of the largest banks in the region, we see this as one of our core competencies. Erste Group’s social banking clients are start-ups, small businesses, social organisations and low-income earners who usually do not have access to help from banks. We are therefore investing in the development of impact-centred financial products in Erste Social Finance Holding (ESFH), an impact investment company specialising in social banking that has evolved out of Erste Group. In 2021 ERSTE Foundation participated in a capital increase in ESFH amounting to 940,000 euros. Franz Karl Prüller speaks with the managing director of ESFH, Peter Surek, about how the potential and performance of social banking offers have changed in recent years. An example from Slovakia shows the dimensions that innovative and committed social banking can take on today. Alexandra Christandl reports on a project of Erste Group’s Slovakian subsidiary, Slovenská sporiteľňa (SLSP), that points the way for the entire region. In a time of rapidly rising housing costs, the Social Banking Department of SLSP, headed by Rasťo Blažej, along with ESFH, enables people to live in dignity according to the principle of “housing first”. In so doing, countries like Slovakia are testing the development of a market-financed system of affordable rental housing.
