Client Stories

Story about Redlers (2008)

When Erzebet, textile technician and mother of three, lost her job as reduntant labor in 1994, disapointed and upset, she swore never to touch the sawing kit again. Nevertheless, her husband and co-workers talked her into accepting an offer of making custom made caps. When the job was done, Andras and Erzebet made first calculations regarding the start-up business and came to a conclusion that they would be able to start the business with some small financial investment and hard work. They alredy had creativity and skills, so they started to acquire additional knowledge from old books and the internet. They have founded their micro-business with the loan received from Opportunity Bank.

Their first appearance in public was three years ago, when they participated on the Inter Ethno festival in Subotica. Custom made caps are easy to make and sell, but the Redler’s still made great efforts to improve the technique of using natural materials to produce hats. In the previous century, hatmakers had shops in all the major cities in Serbia, and all over in Europe. Hats were not only accessory, but also a status symbol. For example, in the U.K. in late 18th and early 19th century there was a ’hat tax’ because the general opinion was that only the wealthy could afford more than just one such expensive piece of wardrobe.

• Mr. Dragan Bulic is client of Opportunity Bank since 2005
  
• His first loan was in the amount of 5,000 EUR
  
• His current, third loan with Opportunity Bank Serbia amounts to 70,000 EUR and was used for purchasing of the fifth greenhouse
  
• Dragan and his wife Marija are in the flower business for 30 years; their first business endeavor was a flower-shop back in the 80-ties
  
• When they decided to start growing their own flowers in greenhouses and engage in wholesale and retail sale, Opportunity Bank was their first partner and the only bank willing to provide them with funds they needed to expand their business capacities
  
• Today, they are running a highly successful business supplying the biggest flower market in the Serbian capital
  
• Their plants and flowers can even be found in the gardens of Serbian Royal Family
  
• Their newest plan is to penetrate the flower market in the Novi Sad area and they are currently installing an exhibition greenhouse in the nearby town of Sremska Kamenica
  
• Bulic family employs few women from the small village of Lok where their greenhouses are situated
  
• The family (Dragan, Marija and their children – Tamara and Pavle) invests every earned dinar (Serbian currency) into their business

“When we first started with our flower business, not one single bank wanted to even consider us as loan clients – we were starting from scratch and all that we really had was an idea. Opportunity Bank has helped us turn our dreams into reality and today, when many other commercial banks knock on our door offering their services to us, all we can do is turn them down and say that we will stay with the one bank which trusted our abilities from the beginning and managed to stay our partner for three years, witnessing our growth and success.”

Dragan Bulic, Client of Opportunity Bank Serbia

Serbia is not the first Eastern European country struggling on its way to Europe, and with one in 14 people living below the poverty threshold situation is more than serious. The transition has brought massive lay-offs and high unemployment rate, but on the other hand, it also enabled development of private initiatives, which is where Opportunity Bank (then as Opportunity Savings Bank) stepped in back in 2002, when this organization was established with the USAID’s support and it has remained its most significant partner in Serbia to date. Since that time, Opportunity Bank offers to the citizens of Serbia its loans for entrepreneurs, as well as start-up loans, unique in the Serbian saturated financial market. Its business loans are designed to assist people with entrepreneurial spirit and sound business ideas, who were, for one reason or the other, not in focus of numerous commercial banks in Serbia. Opportunity Bank does not finance consumer loans.

One of the four most economically vulnerable population groups in Serbia are women. Women make up more than a half of Serbia’s population, but only 44% of them are employed . Coupled with reinstatement of traditional, patriarchal relations between genders in Serbia, where a woman is pressured to make a choice between job and children, and where property and/or savings in most cases is not registered in her name, it is extremely difficult for a woman to take a loan and start a business of her own. The proof is the fact that women make only 30% of private employers in Serbia .

In 2005 Sonja Milosavljević from Niš decided to change the statistics and start up her own small family business. Having lost her job in the Mašinska industrija Niš (out of 16,000 employees only 4,000 remained), and trying to support a 4-member family with only a small salary that her husband Zoran was making as an employee in the Niš District Prison, Sonja and Zoran decided to start producing mushrooms for commercial distribution in their family estate, which is a profitable activity because first harvest happens after 60 days, and there can be as many as 6 of them during a year. All they needed was a loan to equip the production facilities, but not a single bank wanted to engage in this business venture with them, as they had no previous business history or experience + as an agricultural household, they were not eligible for a business loan at that time. All they had was strong will to provide better future for their children and an elaborated plan which would make this dream come true. But where there is a will, there is a way.

That was when Milosavljević family heard about Opportunity, and here is what Sonja has to say about their co-operation: “It was the only organization which was willing to give us the loan for our project. They were quick and efficient, which was crucial for further development of our business". Sonja used her first business loan from Opportunity Savings Bank to purchase the equipment necessary for two production facilities. Further loans helped build the third facility in the nearby village of Donje Međurovo. Today, she is supplying many restaurants and pizza-places in the area, as well as grocery stores, and when the demand started exceeding their capacities, Sonja and Zoran went into the resale business: they are now also buying mushrooms from other producers and selling them to final customers. That is when the need for a storing chamber arose, and the most recent loan Sonja got from Opportunity Bank in April 2007 was used for installation of this additional facility.

This is only one of the success story about Opportunity’s female clients, but there is never enough of them. Opportunity Bank continues to extend its outreach to women-entrepreneurs and to encourage those who are contemplating entering a project of their own. Sonja’s capability for multi-tasking, where she successfully balances her role of a mother, wife and a home-maker with the role of a successful entrepreneur is a good example for the remaining 56% of unemployed women from the beginning of our story. Because women deserve to be recognized as a powerful economic force and corner-stone of Serbian society.