The European Investment Bank (EIB) and Banco Sabadell today signed a EUR 250 million loan for financing SMEs (firms with up to 250 employees) and midcaps (firms with up to 3 000 employees) via Banco Sabadell’s network in Spain. Under the agreement Banco Sabadell will match the EIB loan with the same amount, meaning that a total of EUR 500 million will be made available to the small and medium-sized business sector.

SMEs and midcaps in a broad range of productive sectors will be able to access these funds with favourable interest rates and maturity terms to finance both investment projects and working capital. The individual loans will finance projects costing up to EUR 25 million in the case of SMEs and up to EUR 50 million in the case of midcaps.

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 such firms and the self-employed.