On June 1, 2013, the National Bank of Hungary launched the Loans for Growth Program (NHP), albeit the details of the program had been known several months earlier. For the July 2013 SME Outlook survey by the HCCI Institute for Economic and Enterprise Research (IEER) the leaders of small and medium-sized enterprises were asked about bank loans and the NHP Program.

The results show that a little more than half of small and medium-sized enterprises have some form of bank loan. The most common type of credit is working capital loans (including account loans) and companies hold mostly forint-denominated loans.

During the first half of 2013, barely one third of SMEs intended to take out a loan. Most companies considered a working capital loan (account loan) while two-thirds of the firms planning to borrow took into account the NHP when making the decision. In the end, three-quarters of those planning to borrow made a loan application, of which the vast majority occurred within the NHP.