Loans designated for small businesses and mid-caps provide partner financial institutions with liquidity. These senior loans come with specific provisions that ensure the intermediaries allocate EIB Group funds to final beneficiaries, in line with pre-defined policy priorities and EIB eligibility criteria under the EIB Group’s housing Action Plan.

The EIB Group can provide financial intermediaries with liquidity by purchasing certain securities, such as covered bonds. These instruments follow the same requirements as standard EIB loans for small businesses and mid-caps for the additional lending to be made available (complementary portfolio) and the transfer of financial value added.

Granular portfolio guarantees cover the portfolio losses (up to a pre-defined share) for debt financing provided to small and mid-cap firms. These guarantees can be offered either as direct guarantees to financial intermediaries or as counter-guarantees, where the EIB Group shares the risk on guarantees provided by a financial intermediary.

Non-granular guarantees are instruments through which the EIB covers up to 50% of the losses for each loan within a specific portfolio. This instrument can be offered either as a non-funded modality (unconditional guarantee) or through funded risk participation (contingent loan).

For on-lending to multi-component investment programmes of multiple beneficiaries. The loan is provided for allocation to projects within a framework of pre-defined objectives and eligibilities, with specific schemes to be confirmed during the programme’s implementation.

The EIB Group supports the lending activities of banks and other financial intermediaries by participating in securitisation transactions. These transactions help banks and financial intermediaries diversify their funding sources and meet their capital requirements by transferring credit risk.