Spain: EUR 500 million for SMEs and midcaps

The European Investment Bank (EIB) and Bankia have concluded a EUR 250 million loan aimed at facilitating access to funding for SMEs and midcaps. The agreement was signed today by EIB Vice-President Román Escolano, and Bankia’s CEO, José Ignacio Goirigolzarri.

Bankia will match the EIB loan with the same amount, meaning that a total of EUR 500 million will be made available to Spanish businesses under this agreement.

SMEs and midcaps (firms with up to 3 000 employees) in a broad range of productive sectors will have access to this funding on favourable interest rate and maturity terms for financing their investments and working capital needs. The individual loans will finance investments of up to EUR 25 million in the case of SMEs and up to EUR 50 million in the case of midcaps.

This is the second EIB loan of this type to Bankia in under a year. The previous loan (EUR 200 million signed in October 2014 and matched by the same amount by Bankia) financed the projects of over 600 Spanish businesses.

During the signing ceremony, EIB Vice-President Román Escolano expressed his “enormous satisfaction at this second operation with Bankia in the space of year, a clear sign of the close cooperation between our two institutions with the fundamental goal of supporting small and medium-sized businesses, which are the backbone of the Spanish economy and will play a key role in strengthening the economic recovery and job creation”.

On signing the agreement, José Ignacio Goirigolzarri said that he was delighted with the results of the loan signed last year and confident that the new credit line would raise the number of beneficiary companies. “Making available credit is our most important task, because helping firms to grow their business is the best contribution we can make to the Spanish economy”, said Mr Goirigolzarri, thanking the EIB for its work.

In 2014, the EIB Group (including the European Investment Fund) provided EUR 25 500 million in support of some 290 000 SMEs and midcaps throughout Europe. In Spain that year, the EIB made available EUR 7 603 million in new credit lines for SMEs, benefiting more than 62 000 companies and self-employed entrepreneurs.