Spain: EIB Group And Banco Santander To Unlock €1.2B In New Financing To Back Small Businesses And Mid-Caps
Business
The EIB Group's investment in “Santander Consumo 6 consumer credit securitisation fund” will support Spanish small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and mid-caps, enabling Banco Santander to channel close to €1.2 billion to the real economy.
With this agreement, the EIB Group and Banco Santander will make it easier for SMEs and mid-caps to access finance to meet their working capital and liquidity needs and mitigating the negative investment impact of inflation, high energy prices and high interest rates. This new transaction will support competitiveness, job creation and the retention of human capital. The agreement also supports the development of the European securitisation market, a particularly important market for the Capital Markets Union.
Under the operation, the European Investment Bank (EIB) will make an investment commitment of €500 million, while the European Investment Fund (EIF) will commit €30 million. The entire EIB Group investment is being made through a single securitisation in which other private investors have also participated.
The EIF’s €30 million investment is linked to the creation of an additional €60 million loan portfolio by Banco Santander. At least 50% of the loans in this portfolio will go to Spanish SMEs and mid-caps implementing projects in the areas of environment and climate action, energy efficiency and women’s entrepreneurship. This is the first time that the latter area has been included in EIB-Group-Banco Santander securitisation operations.
It is estimated that over half of the final beneficiaries of the agreement are in cohesion regions, where per capita income is below the EU average. In this way, the operation will promote fair growth and convergence between EU regions, a key objective of the EIB’s lending.