SME lending: Softloans has officially launched in Romania. Fully online application. Decision within 24 hours. No collateral.

Romania has long been one of the EU’s most underserved SME lending markets. Today, only around 7% of Romanian businesses have bank credit as their primary source of financing, according to National Bank of Romania data cited in the OECD’s 2026 Romania survey. Most businesses still rely on retained earnings or supplier credit.

And the gap isn’t closing. According to the latest BNR survey on corporate lending, banks have tightened SME credit standards for seven consecutive quarters, while perceived credit risk for SMEs has risen faster than for large companies.

That’s not a footnote. It’s a structural gap. A gap that a traditional collateral-heavy lending model isn’t built to close but the embedded finance has already started closing across Europe.

„We’ve entered Romania the way we’ve entered new markets before: through a local partner, not a branch network. Our new partnership with 123Credit.ro, one of Romania’s most active financial intermediation networks, puts revenue-based financing where Romanian SMEs already go looking for financing at the moment they’re weighing their options.” – the company said in a blog post.

Fully online application.
Decision within 24 hours.
No collateral.
Repayments that adapt to daily revenue instead of a fixed monthly bill.

„This is the playbook that’s worked for us across Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. The same model now guides our entry into Romania. It’s also the approach recognized when Softloans was named a winner of the Mastercard Lighthouse FINITIV program.” – the company explained.

“This partnership with Softloans brings together 123Credit’s expertise in financial intermediation with revenue-based financing technology, integrating financing directly into companies’ sales process, fully online. We believe in the digital future of financial services, and we’re glad to work with Softloans to bring this new form of business financing to Romanian entrepreneurs,” says Sebastian Piu, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, 123Credit.

This important market entry is led by our one and only Daniela Dragnea, who shares this: “Every market we’ve entered has looked the same on paper: SMEs underserved by banks, and a local partner perfectly positioned to close that gap if they had the right financing product behind them. Romania is no different, and we don’t expect it to be the last.”