Field of business

• Production, service and trade enterprises
• In the tourism and leisure industry subsidiary to ÖHT (Austrian Hotel and Tourism Bank)

Size of the company

• All sizes – from sole entrepreneurs to SMEs and large companies

Phase of development

• All stages - starting with the start-up-stage and including M&A-projects

Requirements

• The business is located in Austria.
• The company acts in its own name and on its own account.
• The project provides a positive impact on the Austrian economy.
• The project is realised in Austria (exemption: special terms and conditions for internationalisation).
• The application is submitted before the start of the project (exemption: state aid free guarantees and guarantees according to de-minimis rules of more than 1M euros, for which the start of the project can already be 6 month prior to submission of the application.
• Balanced risk sharing – depending on loan amount and project risk.
• Any loan collateral in addition to aws guarantee depends on your project and the funding bank, eg. personal liability, mortgages, retention of title (exemption: special terms and conditions for doubling equity capital).  
• For loans up to 100,000 euros aws waives securities with the exception of the personal liability of the entrepreneur or the major shareholders.
• The guarantee is provided within the scope of de-minims or GBER but can also be state aid free.
• For details on the preconditions we refer to the guidelines under „Downloads“.

Success rate

• For SMEs and large companies 90 %,
• For innovative Start-ups 30 %.

Type of financing

• Guarantee for loans to finance fixed assets and working capital

Financing amount
Up to 80 % of a loan with a max. aws-liability of 15M EUR (for digitization projects and "green" projects according to EU taxonomy 25 M EUR) and a max. term of 20 years (depending on the project to be financed).

The following conditions apply to guarantees for working-capital loans:

• With a guarantee rate up to 80 %
  • loans with final maturity up to 100,000 EUR
  • loans with equal half yearly instalments up to 2.5M EUR
• With a guarantee rate of 50 %
  • Loans with final maturity of more than 100,000 EUR
  • Loans with equal half yearly instalments of more than 2.5M EUR for large companies and SMEs

The guarantee amount for investment in assets and working capital funding must not exceed 25 mio EUR per project.

From a project volume of 5 mio EUR aws does not take a risk share of more than 1/3 of the overall risk – with the exception of projects with high economic relevance and good credit ratings.

Term of the guaranteed loan 

• Min. 3 years – max. 20 years
  Working capital loans usually up to 5 years

Eligible costs

• tangibles, eg. machinery, equipment, construction
• R&D costs eg. personnel costs, prototype costs, test material, external costs
• current assets and working capital eg. rent, personal costs, goods, materials
• marketing and sales costs

Costs

• processing fee: from 0.25 % of the loan, 60,000 Euro, in the case of pre-guarantees min. 200 EUR and 0,25 % in case of realizing the pre-guarantee to a guarantee
• guarantee fee: depending on your credit rating annually at least 0.3 % of the guaranteed loan to the extent of the guarantee ratio, in case of counterguarantees by EU-programmes also less
• guarantee fee in case of preguarantees:
  • funding above 937,500 Euro: 0.3 % p.a. of  the  promised/committed guarantee amount for a term of 6 months

The interest rate of the loan guaranteed has to be agreed between the company and the respective bank.

Additional funding

• aws erp-loan
• aws Seedfinancing

• Projects that do not have a plausible chance of success. In this respect, the company´s own resources/equity and the market opportunities of the of the company or the project are also included in the assessment.
• Projects that are not carried out in Austria (exception: special terms and conditions for internationalisation)
• Costs of export-related activities, in particular those directly linked to the quantities exported, to the establishment or operation of a distribution network or to other current expenditure linked to the export activity
• Costs resulting form small amount invoices below EUR 150 (net)
• Projects that consists in the sole transfer of ownership without project character (eg. through of a new strategic orientation)
• Projects that do not have an entrepreneural character (eg. private parts of the project costs)
• Pure order financing, i.e. short term loans or credit accounts used for the (interim)financing of individual orders
• The recollateralization of existing loans
• the purchase or construction of a building which is not used by the company itself but is constructes oder acquired for the purpose of rental and/or sale  (=real estate activities).

Process of application and approval

1. You apply for an aws guarantee together with your bank at aws via aws Fördermanager.
2. You will receive a confirmation of receipt from us.
3. First we check the most important technical and formal criteria.
4. If neccessary we clarify the project details together with you.
5. We analyse your application in detail and decide whether your project can be funded– or not.
6. In any case, we will inform you about our decision and in case of a positive decision we issue a guarantee letter.
7. The guarantee letter has to be signed/accepted by you and the bank within 3 months calculated from the date of issue.
8. The statement about the completion of the project as well as the fullfillment of all necessary conditions has to be submitted within three months starting at the end of the project implementation period.

Duration of the approval process

Depending on the amout of financing from 2 weeks to 2 months.