Netherlands: Rabobank and DLL: An extra EUR 400 million from the EIB for SMEs

This week, DLL and Rabobank have received an additional EUR 400 million from the European Investment Bank (EIB) for SME owners and corporate enterprises wishing to invest. With this facility, the EIB is supporting the recovery of businesses in the Netherlands and the rest of Europe. Entrepreneurs ranging from SMEs to large corporates needing a bank loan or lease to fund their investments and that meet the criteria can benefit from an interest-rate discount of up to 0.90%.

‘Now that the Dutch economy is picking up and business confidence is growing, SMEs and large corporates will welcome this additional support for their investments. The previous EIB tranche (in June 2015) of EUR 100 million in bank loans has led to nearly three times that amount in investments. With this additional support, we are encouraging entrepreneurs in the SME and large corporate sector to continue to invest in a sound business and thereby in a healthy Dutch economy,’ says Jan van Nieuwenhuizen, member of the Executive Board of Rabobank. The EIB facility is on top of the EUR 100 million of EIB funds provided to Rabobank last week specifically for impact investments.

The EIB has provided EUR 200 million to both DLL and Rabobank. At least 400 entrepreneurs are expected to take advantage of the facility. Milko Wijckmans, Director DLL Nederland explains: ‘This is the third time that the EIB and DLL are collectively supporting Dutch entrepreneurs since the cooperation began in 2014. The funding from the EIB enables DLL to offer an attractive discount on its normal lease rates, which has been highly appreciated by our customers. We are delighted that this continuation of the cooperation with the EIB will enable us to further support SME owners in our national economy during what is still a challenging time for the sector.’

The EIB is pleased that it has been able to provide a total of EUR 500 million (400 for normal investments and 100 for impact investments) through Rabobank and DLL as an encouragement to Dutch entrepreneurs to make further investments. The Dutch Vice President of the EIB, Pim van Ballekom, says: ‘The European Investment Bank also supports SMEs and in recent weeks we have made half a billion euros available to small and medium-sized enterprises in the Netherlands. The bank provides this credit through local partner banks and we want to give a signal that Europe supports business owners.’ The EIB is the world’s largest multilateral lender and its shareholders are the 28 European member states.

Criteria

The interest-rate discount is available to businesses with less than 3,000 employees. The facility is therefore available to both small and medium-sized companies, or SMEs. The total investment may not exceed EUR 25 million.

2,350 entrepreneurs have benefited

In the past seven years (2009-2016), Rabobank has been able to provide loans to more than 1,850 SME and midcap entrepreneurs at attractive rates thanks to similar funding from the EIB. These business owners collectively provide at least 31,000 jobs in the Netherlands. Since the start of the cooperation (in 2014) DLL has financed around 500 entrepreneurs with an EIB facility, who collectively provide more than 32,000 jobs. On average, the loans amount to approximately EUR 800,000. While initially it was mainly the agricultural sector and food retailers that participated, now entrepreneurs from other sectors are increasingly making use of the facility.