The European Investment Bank (EIB) and Bankinter have signed a new agreement to support Spanish SMEs and mid-caps (up to 3 000 employees). For this purpose, the EU bank has provided a EUR 200m loan to Bankinter, which will add a further EUR 200m to this credit line. As a result, the total funding made available to SMEs and mid-caps to fund their working capital and investment projects will be EUR 400m. The beneficiary companies will be able to make their investments in Spain and Portugal.
The EIB's support means that this financing will enable companies to benefit from more favourable maturity and interest rate conditions to develop their projects. This loan is the sixth of its type underwritten by the two entities, and is focused particularly on funding projects by smaller-sized companies, such as micro-enterprises (with fewer than ten employees), and companies located in convergence regions. The objective of the agreement is to give companies support in order to drive economic growth and job creation.
The previous agreement between the EIB and Bankinter was signed in 2017, and has provided funding to more than 1 200 companies to date. The average loan amount granted under that agreement was EUR 180 000. To be eligible for the EIB and Bankinter finance fund, investment project costs must be under EUR 12.5m for small businesses and up to EUR 25m for mid-caps.
With this new agreement, the EIB and Bankinter are joining forces to promote economic development for small and medium-sized enterprises. To do so, this EIB-Bankinter credit line will offer them favourable conditions including longer payment terms, flexible disbursements and lower interest rates.
Supporting SMEs
In 2018, Spain was the EU country that received most support from the EIB Group to finance SMEs and mid-caps. The Bank provided more than EUR 4.8bn to Spanish SMEs, which represents 57% of the EIB Group’s activity in the country. These funds have made it possible to support the investment projects of more than 82 600 Spanish companies employing 766 000 people.
For Bankinter, companies represent one of their strategic segments. At the close of the third quarter this year, the bank’s corporate banking investment portfolio was worth EUR 25bn, compared to EUR 23.7bn a year ago. Focusing on business in Spain, the corporate loan portfolio is worth EUR 23.3bn, which represents a 3.7% increase compared to the same data from the previous year, bucking the trend in the sector.