Urban development funds under operational programme “Regions in Growth”

The programme is supposed to cover a multitude of activities in selected urban centres (energy efficiency in family residential buildings and student dormitories, urban environment, integrated public transport, sports and cultural infrastructure and areas with economic development potential). Although one of the main goals of the programme is to provide soft loans for renovation to owners of single-family buildings, this is not happening at all yet, due to low interest from potential beneficiaries and expectations for high subsidy rates to be offered by the government in the near future. The programme is supposed to run via specialised consumer loans designed by selected commercial banks in partnership with the programme operator and financed through the funding line. Commercial banks, which are supposed to operate the programme, are however not willing to design and promote new products under these conditions, as their perceived costs for product design, promotion, training of the personnel and managing small projects at local level are deemed higher than the possible benefits. They are also concerned that the certification requirements would make the product more expensive and will be comparable to or even perform worse than their typical consumer products.