Spain: Financing for SMEs: EIB and Banco Sabadell provide credit lines totalling EUR 700m

• EUR 100m or this financing will be used for investment in business innovation and digitisation
• Agricultural SMEs will also be able to benefit from the EIB-Sabadell credit lines to finance investments to improve their environmental impact 

The European Investment Bank (EIB) and Banco Sabadell are joining forces to provide Spanish SMEs with the resources they need to finance their investments. The two institutions have signed several partnership agreements to enable small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to access credit on the EIB’s favourable conditions in terms of both interest rates and maturities. The total volume of these new EIB-Banco Sabadell credit lines stands at EUR 700m. 

Support for the RDI of Spanish SMEs

The EIB will provide Banco Sabadell with EUR 235m, to which it will add a further EUR 235m of its own resources. These funds will help finance the investments of SMEs to guarantee their competitiveness and contribute to wealth and job creation. Of the EUR 470m jointly provided by the EIB and Banco Sabadell, EUR 100m will go towards promoting investment in business innovation and digitisation, granting financing to enable Spanish SMEs to implement their research, development and innovation (RDI) strategies.

Financing for agricultural sector SMEs

The EIB and Banco Sabadell have also signed an agreement to support the investments of agricultural, agri-food, fisheries and livestock sector SMEs.  A EUR 115m EU bank loan will be accompanied by a further EUR 115m from Banco Sabadell, and is part of the EIB programme loan for this kind of company.

One of the aims of this EIB-Sabadell credit line for agricultural sector SMEs is to help these companies to modernise by implementing new production processes that improve their environmental impact. To this end, some of these funds will be earmarked for SMEs whose investments contribute to climate action.   

These new agreements are another step forward for the close relationship between the EIB and Banco Sabadell that began in 2009 with the goal of providing financing to Spanish SMEs on favourable terms. The last agreement between the two institutions was signed in March 2018 and has made it possible to grant around EUR 900m to finance 1 700 projects implemented by SMEs.