The European Investment Bank (EIB) is providing a SEK 350 million (some EUR 40 million) loan to Sparbanken Öresund for financing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) located in the region of Skåne in the southern part of Sweden.
The EIB loan will encourage the growth and development of SMEs by reducing their overall financing costs and providing long-term funding, which would otherwise not be available to this sector. Furthermore, the EIB support is expected to contribute to youth employment in the region, as it will finance small and medium-scale projects in various sectors of the economy, like infrastructure, environmental protection, research, development, energy, health and education.
The EIB Group, through the European Investment Fund (EIF), has a long-standing relationship with Sparbanken Öresund. Recently, the EIF and Sparbanken Öresund signed a guarantee agreement under the Risk Sharing Instrument (RSI) initiative funded by the European Commission. This enables Sparbanken Öresund to give innovative companies in Sweden access to a total of SEK 300 million (some EUR 35 million) worth of debt financing over the next two years with the support of the 50% guarantee provided by the EIF.