Deadline Extended Until 30th June – Business Development Services (BDS) Pilot

One of the key objectives of the EaSI programme is to stimulate the financial and social inclusion of borrowers wishing to set-up or develop their micro-enterprises and who may have limited or no access to the conventional credit market. To this end, under the EaSI Microfinance Guarantee, the offering of non-financial support in the form of business development services (“BDS”) as a complement to the microloan disbursed to micro-borrowers and micro-enterprises, is an important requirement for selected intermediaries.

Call for expression of interest – click

Deadline for applications: 30 June 2021

As part of the EaSI programme, the EU has launched a €1 million pilot, the Business Development Services Pilot (the “BDS Pilot” or the “Pilot”), to further strengthen the provision of BDS to refugees and migrants and therefore contribute to their financial and social inclusion. The objective is to provide partial coverage for the costs incurred by intermediaries when providing such services, with the aim to boost entrepreneurship amongst these vulnerable groups that are often confronted with a challenging environment when setting up and developing a business in a different country than their country of origin (language barriers, administrative burden, lack of knowledge of local legislation, etc.).

This communication  has received financial support from the European Union Programme for Employment and Social Innovation “EaSI” (2014-2020). For further information please consult: http://ec.europa.eu/social/easi The information contained in this communication does not necessarily reflect the official position of the European Commission.