The European Investment Fund (EIF) is prolonging its existing agreements with European banks, microfinance providers and guarantee institutions, resulting in an extra €315m of guarantees covering SMEs’ financing through the EU Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP).
The EIF’s decision to extend guarantee agreements with these financial institutions is based on a healthy demand in the markets from small and medium sized businesses.
These deal will enable SMEs to continue to benefit from easier and better access to medium to long-term investment loans, working capital financing and micro-finance thanks to the extended guarantee agreements.
The CIP guarantee is provided for free to financial institutions which take on additional risk, in order to continue providing access to finance in light of the financial and economic crisis.
Financial institutions benefiting from these recent extensions are active in Belgium, France, Germany, Slovenia and Spain and include:
• Fonds de Participation
• SOCAMA / Banques Populaires
• Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau
• Javni Sklad Republike Slovenije za podjetnistvo (Slovene Enterprise Fund)
• Compania Espanola de Reafianzamiento (CERSA)
• Microbank de la Caixa
FinSMEs
18/01/2010