ByJERUSALEM POST STAFF

The Israeli economy can recover quickly after the pandemic, according to a top banking official.

“We at Mercantile Bank believe in the rapid growth of the Israeli economy and are offering a set of tools to help finance the self-employed, small and medium-sized businesses,” Mercantile Bank vice president Dudi Maimon, director of its retail division, was quoted as saying in a press release. “We also provide advanced tools for managing an account on the website and the app, and most importantly, we have professional bankers who are available directly for the bank’s customers.”

Maimon made the comments at an independent trade union conference held at Mercantile Bank at the initiative of BIZCO on the topic, “The Israeli economy post-coronavirus crisis.”

With the exit from the pandemic, Mercantile is resuming activity in the State Guarantee Fund, which opened in 2016, said Mercantile Bank vice president Zion Becker, director of its commercial-banking division.

“Mercantile Bank’s share in the Coronavirus Fund for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses was 19%, despite the share of Mercantile Bank in the entire banking system being 3%, a figure that indicates that the bank didn’t stop supporting its business customers in the crisis,” he said.

The bank has accumulated more than 100 years of experience working with small and medium-sized businesses, and it knows how to provide finance solutions for new businesses, support for existing ones and has special financial products to support cash flow to strengthen the financial management of small businesses, Becker said.

Mercantile Bank CEO Shuki Burstein said: “The small-business community is the core of the activity we are targeting. It is a community in which we specialize and in which we identify great potential for integrated growth.”

BIZCO founder and chairwoman Liat Yakia Zilberman said: “The organization encourages the creation of significant business connections and connections between business owners and trade unions to produce joint activities in the economy.”

The conference was attended by Mary Kesler Lupu, managing partner of BIZCO; Oren Machluf, BMB Division manager of Menora Business Center; attorney Keren Ohana Ayos, general manager of the National Association of Private Kindergartens; Gil Vaknin, chairman of the Owners Union Association; attorney Ravit Gros, general manager of the Association of Craft and Industry; and tax adviser and accountant Revital Sitton Ben Ari, president of the Institute of Tax Consultants.