Jungjingong Fully Implements Non-Face-to-Face Process for SME Policy Funds

Policy Fund Consultation Applications Open on Jungjin Gong Website from the 24th
All Stages from Consultation to Evaluation and Loan Fully Non-Face-to-Face

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Cheol-hyun] The Small and Medium Business Corporation (Chairman Kim Hak-do, hereinafter referred to as SBC) announced that from the 24th, it will begin accepting online consultation applications for the '2021 SME Policy Funds' and apply non-face-to-face methods throughout all stages of the funding support process.

◆ 54 trillion KRW for SME Policy Funds in 2021 = This year, the key support directions for SME policy funds focus on strengthening the competitiveness of Korea's New Deal policies such as Green, Digital, and Regional Balanced New Deals, as well as expanding opportunities for management normalization and re-challenge for small and medium venture enterprises experiencing management crises due to COVID-19.

The scale of policy fund support is 5.41 trillion KRW, an increase of 17.9% compared to the initial amount of the previous year. Emergency management stabilization funds to support companies affected by COVID-19 have also been expanded by 400 billion KRW from the previous year to 500 billion KRW.

Applications and submissions for policy funds can be made online through the SBC website. Based on online consultation applications, preliminary consultations will be conducted from the 28th, and application submissions and on-site evaluations will be carried out starting from the 4th of next month.

◆ Full introduction of non-face-to-face processes = To prevent the spread of COVID-19 and proactively respond to the post-COVID era of non-face-to-face and digitalization, SBC decided to fully introduce non-face-to-face processes at each stage of policy fund consultation, evaluation, and loan.

Policy fund consultations will support AI chatbot consultation services and expand non-face-to-face consultations through the establishment of a dedicated call center. Additionally, SBC plans to build a mobile branch (app) in the future to expand the mobile-based policy fund application platform.

At the company evaluation stage, non-face-to-face evaluations, which were previously applied only to some funds, will be expanded to all funds. During the first half of 2021, an AI evaluation model based on big data will be developed to enable the selection and focused support of companies with growth potential. Furthermore, to provide safe and prompt policy fund support, on-site inspections will be boldly omitted and replaced with non-face-to-face evaluations depending on social distancing situations. While policy fund agreements were previously only possible through on-site visits, SBC plans to introduce a non-face-to-face electronic agreement system within 2021 to overcome temporal and spatial constraints.

SBC will operate the application system by distributing the opening times across Seoul and provinces, as well as Gyeonggi and Incheon, to prevent system overload caused by a surge in online application reservations. The opening schedule will be announced in advance on the SBC website every month.

Moreover, through cooperation with related organizations such as credit information evaluation agencies, the number of essential documents companies must submit will be reduced from the current seven to five. In particular, the financial transaction confirmation document, which SMEs previously had to obtain as a physical paper certificate from each bank and submit, will be abolished to significantly reduce the document preparation burden on companies.

Chairman Kim Hak-do stated, "We will proactively transition the policy fund support system to a non-face-to-face method to become a leading institution driving the post-COVID era," and added, "SBC will actively support small and medium venture enterprises in overcoming the COVID-19 crisis and achieving innovative growth through safer and faster policy fund support."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.