Austrian – based firm Arteus Capital Holding will launch a new lending product for those who own gold and deposit it with the firm. The value of the loan will be of 65 to 75 percent of the gold owned, with the gold bullion used as collateral for the loan, according to Kubanda Levente, manager of the Arteus office in Brasov, Romania.

The loan, on three, six, nine months or a year will be in euros, according to Levente, quoted by Agerpres. This type of loan was already launched in Hungary and met with success, at an interest rate of 6.5 percent. The company hopes that around half of its clients will choose the new type of loan, planned to be launched by the end of 2012.

Arteus has 500 clients in Romania who together own some 150 kilos of gold and deposit it with the company. The value of the gold is over EUR 6 million.

With a 2011 turnover of EUR 4.5 million in Romania, Arteus, which runs offices in Bucharest and Brasov, hopes to achieve a turnover of EUR 12 million in 2012. Arteus offers professional services to clients who want to invest in gold and other precious metals and in saving products pegged to precious metals. The minimum gold investment amount with the firm is EUR 1,000 and for savings products, EUR 50 a month.

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