Following a successful workshop on mobile financial services, the EFSE DF organised and sponsored a workshop on agrifinance in cooperation with the Association of Serbian Banks in March 2015. The fundamental question addressed at the workshop: Why is the share of agricultural loans in the banks’ total loan portfolio so small in relation to sector’s importance and its contribution to Serbia’s GDP – and how can the country’s financial institutions tap into this potential?

Participants explored various value chain finance schemes and innovative agrifinance concepts, such as warehouse receipt finance, pre-harvest funding and the ‘agricultural credit card’ that could help spur agrilending in Serbia. The workshop’s topic incited participants to share their agrilending experiences and discuss the opportunities, challenges and applicability of the presented concepts in the Serbian context.