The European Investment Bank has granted a EUR 200 million loan to Bilbao Bizkaia Kutxa (BBK) for financing investment projects carried out by SMEs (companies with fewer than 250 employees), mid-caps (up to 3 000 employees) and local authorities.
BBK is matching this EIB funding with a further EUR 200 million for financing the same type of projects, meaning that a total of EUR 400 million will be made available to companies and local authorities over a period of two years.
The loan will mainly serve to finance the projects of small industrial businesses and will help to increase the final beneficiaries’ productivity, foster the rational use of energy and the diversification of energy sources, and stimulate private enterprise in the health and education sectors. The rest will support investment by bigger companies and local authorities mainly in the areas of convergence, environmental protection and energy.
In a new initiative, this credit line can also be used to finance the working capital of small businesses (with no need for additional investment) as well as traditional fixed assets.
This is the EIB’s third loan to BBK. Their cooperation shows that the two institutions are making a special effort to facilitate SMEs’ access to credit in the current economic climate.
This loan comes under the EIB’s policy of assisting small businesses by facilitating their access to credit lines through more simple and flexible procedures. At the same time, the ElB requires greater transparency from its intermediary banks, which have to clearly inform their customers of the way in which EIB funding improves their borrowing terms: longer maturities, more flexible disbursement schedules and lower interest rates.
The EIB is the European Union’s long-term financing institution promoting EU objectives. Founded in 1958, it operates in the 27 EU Member States and more than 130 other countries around the globe. As an EU objective, support for SMEs is also an investment priority of the EIB.