aws is a member of European networks

Austria Wirtschaftsservice Gesellschaft mbH (aws) cooperates actively with Europe's promotional banks and financial institutions with the aim

  • to exchange experience and know-how in the financial and promotional sector,
  • to deepen cooperation with (financial) institutions of the European Union.

AECM - European Association of Guarantee Institutions

AECM has 48 member organizations operating in 29 European countries (23 EU countries plus Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Serbia, Russia and Turkey). Its members are mutual, private sector guarantee schemes as well as public institutions, which are either guarantee funds or Development banks with a guarantee division. They all have in common the mission of providing loan guarantees for SMEs who have an economically sound project but cannot provide sufficient bankable collateral.

AECM pursues the following three main aims:

Political Representation
AECM represents the political interest of its member organisations both towards the European Institutions, such as the European Commission, the European Parliament and Council, as well as towards other, multilateral bodies, among which the European Investment Bank (EIB), the European Investment Fund (EIF), the Bank for International Settlement (BIS), the World Bank, etc. It deals primarily with issues related to state aid regulation relevant for guarantee schemes within the internal market, to European support programmes and to prudential supervision. It has also dealt with the policy response to the financial crisis.

Exchange of best practices
AECM serves as platform for exchange of best practices on a variety of operational issues. For this purpose, AECM has set up working groups and organises annual seminars, operational training sessions as well as specific ad-hoc events on selected issues.

Promotion of guarantee instruments
AECM undertakes surveys on the guarantee sector, provides relevant technical information, statistics, newsletters as well as other publications to promote the guarantee instrument. It takes part as a sector representative in events both in Europe as well as beyond.

Website AECM

GNGI - Global Network of Guarantee Institutions

On Friday 24 June 2016 the Global Summit of SME Guarantee Organizations Leaders decided in Porto to set up a Global Network of Guarantee Institutions (GNGI) in order to improve credit access for SME worldwide.

The GNGI is a digitally-based Network. It operates without any fixed structure and without any formal obligation to its members apart from the ones set in the Revised Foundation Document. The GNGI has one or two Coordinator(s) agreed among its members and it has an online space in the AECM website.

The network serves as a platform for the exchange of information about the industry, in order to facilitate working together and making the guarantee business even more efficient. There is no mandatory fee to join. The network meets every year at one of its member’s annual events such as ACSIC, AECM, REGAR or MENA and a Global Coordinator is in charge of maintenance and representation. The coordinator of this project is José Fernando Figueiredo, inter alia Special Honorary Chairman of AECM.

GNGI’s mission is to help the Credit Guarantee Schemes that are members of the network to:

promote the guarantee instruments worldwide
facilitate the exchange of experiences
share best practices among its members

zur Internetseite GNGI