EIB and BBVA provide €600m to support SMEs | CDE Almería - Centro de Documentación Europea

EIB is providing BBVA with a €300m guarantee to expand its SME financing capacity
Part of this guarantee – €150m- is being granted with Investment Plan for Europe support

The European Investment Bank (EIB) and BBVA are joining forces to provide financing on favourable terms for Spanish SMEs and mid-caps. EU bank Vice-President Emma Navarro and BBVA CEO Onur Genç signed an agreement today in Madrid enabling the Spanish bank to provide €600m to support the investments of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). With this agreement, BBVA will be able to offer them favourable financing in terms of both maturity and interest rates.

To this end, the EIB has granted a €300m guarantee to BBVA via a risk-sharing (portfolio guarantee) operation, an innovative agreement making it possible to spread the risks between the two institutions. Under this guarantee, the EIB will invest in a loan portfolio held by BBVA, enabling the Spanish bank to expand its financing capacity and provide SMEs with €600m in new financing. This is the first risk-sharing operation to be signed by the EIB and BBVA.

The EIB is granting €150m of this guarantee under the Investment Plan for Europe, the support of which enables the EU bank to finance riskier projects. In concrete terms, these funds will help finance especially vulnerable SMEs such as micro-enterprises and entrepreneurs.

The €600m in financing to be provided by BBVA under this agreement will be of particular benefit to small companies operating in regions with high levels of unemployment, and will support investments focused on innovation and the development of projects promoting climate action. Some 1 700 companies with a total of almost 9 000 employees will be able to benefit from this agreement.

European Investment Bank

The Investment Plan for Europe, known as the “Juncker Plan”, is one of the European Commission’s top priorities. It focuses on boosting investment to generate jobs and growth by making smarter use of financial resources, removing obstacles to investment, and providing visibility and technical assistance to investment projects.

The Investment Plan for Europe

European Fund for Strategic Investments

The European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) is the main pillar of the Juncker Plan and provides first loss guarantees enabling the EIB to invest in more, often riskier projects. The projects and agreements approved for financing under EFSI are expected to mobilise more than €458.8bn in investment – including €49.8bn in Spain – supporting over 1 million start-ups and SMEs across the 28 EU Member States. Juncker Plan-supported investments have increased the EU’s GDP by 0.9% and created an additional 1.1 million jobs compared to the reference scenario. By 2022, the Juncker Plan will have increased EU GDP by 1.8% and have created 1.7 million additional jobs.