The EIB has granted Santander Consumer Finance, a company in the Banco Santander Group, a EUR 75 million loan for providing Spanish SMEs with credit on favourable terms.  Santander Consumer Finance will match the loan with the same amount, meaning that a total of EUR 150 million will be made available for financing small businesses. The agreement was signed in Madrid by EIB Vice-President Román Escolano and the CEO of Banco Santander and head of Santander Consumer Finance, Magda Salarich, and will be used specifically for financing the commercial vehicles of small and medium-sized enterprises.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has granted Santander Consumer Finance, a company in the Banco Santander Group, a EUR 75 million loan for providing Spanish SMEs with credit on favourable terms.  Santander Consumer Finance will match the loan with the same amount, meaning that a total of EUR 150 million will be made available for financing small businesses. The agreement was signed in Madrid by EIB Vice-President Román Escolano and the CEO of Banco Santander and head of Santander Consumer Finance, Magda Salarich, and will be used specifically for financing the commercial vehicles of small and medium-sized enterprises.

This EIB loan is designed to boost the competitiveness of Spanish businesses by fostering economic growth and job creation in the country. The agreement forms part of the EU’s 2017 Loans for SMEs and Midcaps programme.

The loan is the second of this kind agreed by the two institutions. The first, signed in 2015, enabled the provision of EUR 200 million in support of over 1 400 firms, 95% of which were small businesses operating in the transport, logistics, trade and engineering sectors, mostly located in Catalonia, Andalusia, Murcia and Valencia.

EIB Vice-President Román Escolano stressed in Madrid “the importance of this loan’s contribution to implementing one of the EU’s economic priorities: supporting small businesses. Specifically, the operation that we have signed will provide access to credit on favourable interest rate and maturity terms for SMEs, which are key instruments of job and wealth creation in Spain”.