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The European Investment Bank (EIB) and Bankia today signed a EUR 200 million loan agreement designed to facilitate access to finance for SMEs and midcaps. Bankia will match the EIB loan with the same amount, meaning that a total of EUR 400 million will be made available to finance Spanish businesses.

The agreement was signed today by EIB Vice-President Román Escolano and Bankia’s CEO, José Ignacio Goirigolzarri.

At the signing ceremony the EIB Vice-President stressed that “with this new loan the EIB is taking another step forward in its firm commitment to helping small and medium-sized businesses, which are truly the backbone of our economy and key to making progress towards its recovery”. He went to express his “great satisfaction at this operation, which testifies to Bankia’s efforts to forge a new corporate strategy and foster the recovery and smooth functioning of Spain’s financial sector”.

Bankia’s CEO said that “this agreement reaffirms Bankia’s commitment to Spanish firms, for which funding is essential and the best form of assistance that they can receive. At Bankia we wish to support businesses in their investment decisions, and this agreement will help us to achieve that goal”.

SMEs and midcaps (firms with up to 3 000 employees) in a broad range of productive sectors will have access to this funding on favourable interest rate and maturity terms for financing their investment and working capital needs.