Damu Fund digitizes financial support services for small and medium-sized businesses

The Damu Entrepreneurship Development Fund (a subsidiary of Baiterek Holding) provides financial support to micro-, small and medium-sized businesses. The Fund is endeavoring to make these services transparent, convenient, and as accessible as possible. Currently, 97% of all applications for subsidies and 98% of all applications for loan guarantees are submitted online.

Starting from 2016, the Damu Fund began to digitize its services and accept applications for loan guarantees through the egov.kz website. Later, the Fund developed another website – online.damu.kz – where businessmen can apply for both guarantees and subsidies. The Damu Fund does its best to give entrepreneurs more options. By registering on any of the two websites, one can get the full range of services for small and medium-sized businesses.

Statistics show that entrepreneurs prefer online services. In 2019, an average of 24.5% of all applications for the two most popular services (subsidizing interest rates and guaranteeing unsecured loans) were submitted online. In 2020, 66% of all applications were submitted online. In 2021, the share reached 97, 5%. Applying offline proved to be less popular – in 2021, only a little more than 200 people filled out their applications on paper.

Digitalization is not only convenient for our clients, but also ensures the transparency of the processes. The Business Roadmap-2025 and the Economy of Simple Things are the most popular state programs. Subsidizing and guaranteeing agreements under these programs are signed online by three parties: an entrepreneur, a second-tier bank, and the Damu Fund. It allows businessmen to receive services remotely without wasting time on visiting the Fund’s offices.

In addition, the Damu Fund has developed its own IT ecosystem, which includes electronic document management, CRM and BPM systems that allow communicating and making collegial decisions online.

– The ecosystem helps us process applications from entrepreneurs, the number of which is growing every year. In 2021, the number of projects increased by 1.74 times compared to 2020 and amounted to 57.7 thousand. The number of loans issued under all state programs increased by 1.34 times and amounted to 2.252 trillion tenge, – said Gaukhar Buribayeva, Chairman of the Board of the Damu Entrepreneurship Development Fund.

The goal of the Damu Fund, which is a subsidiary of Baiterek Holding, is to provide financial support to entrepreneurs and adhere to the principles of openness and transparency.