“To that effect, the bank develops credit products targeted to every producer segment of the agriculture sector, and it elaborates a financing structure to facilitate the use of EU funds” the press release said.

The agreement provides for discounted bank services — free account management and online banking access this year, and bank-card free of charge in the first year — available in 1,600 cooperative credit institutions for the members of the Chamber of Agriculture as of February.

TakarékBank is expected to pay “particular attention to financing activities and sectors that are among the development objectives of agricultural policy”. The press release added that TakarékBank will also “elaborate structures that facilitate the pre-financing of subsidies announced in the 2014-2020 EU budgetary cycle, in particular subsidies that aim to improve technological development, mechanization and efficiency of primary producers and family farms, as well as subsidies that support the dissemination of irrigation management, the development strategy of the food industry, livestock breeding and horticulture.”

TakarékBank CEO Levente Szabó said that “the agreement concluded with the Hungarian Chamber of Agriculture (NAK) is an integral part of the long term strategy of the integrated savings cooperative sector, which in the medium term aims to become the market leader both in terms of loan volume and client number in the agricultural and food industry sector”.

NAK President Balázs Győrffy said, “The main priority of the Hungarian Chamber of Agricultural is to improve the competitiveness of its members and provide practical services to them […] In accordance with the objectives of Takarékbank the Chamber of Agriculture is intent on exploring the sources of funding available to its members and to draw their attention to these opportunities, which aim to improve the management and daily operations of NAK members within the framework of agricultural policy objectives promoted by NAK.”