2nd International Scientific Conference on Recent Advances in Information Technology, Tourism, Economics, Management and Agriculture – ITEMA 2018 – Graz, Austria, November 8, 2018, CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS published by the Association of Economists and Managers of the Balkans, Belgrade, Serbia; ISBN 978-86-80194-13-4
The financial leasing is a widely used financing tool all over the world and has seen a significant growth especially in developing countries during recent years. Currently, in the Albanian market, there are nine financial institutions no-banks that offer financial leasing, and about 80% of all the financial leasing market is focused on the activity of three main companies. Although the financial lease has begun to operate since 2001, in the case of Albania this product has had its difficulties in being recognized from the public, still constituting an alternative of untapped funding to a highly reduced market.
Financial leasing has a lot of unused potential and provides many opportunities for future use, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, which are the form of business organization having the greatest external financing needs and difficulties. In the case of Albania, SMEs comprise 99.9% of Albanian businesses and leasing can be the right financing solution for many of them. This article aims to provide through literature review on the financial leasing and through a theoretical and analytical study of the market, an overview of the characteristics and performance of the financial leasing in Albania until March 2018. Except analyzing the latest data of the leasing industry the article will make a comparison of its financial costs compared with bank loans to better understand why this form of financing is still in its first steps in Albania after 17 years.
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