Our Mission is to further the objectives of the European Union by making long-term finance available for sound investment.
The EIB Group promotes Corporate Responsibility through its mission and activities in the service of the European Union, through the way it implements these and through its internal management.
The EIB attaches great importance to engaging with civil society and building cooperative relations with its representatives.
The EIB lends money to commercial banks at keen rates to support their lending to small businesses: it provides funds and enables favourable terms.
To finance which enterprises ? All independent SMEs with fewer than 250 employees. The subsidiaries or holding companies of industrial groups with more than 250 workers are not eligible.
To finance what ? Medium and long-term working capital requirements.
EIB loans for SMEs can be used to re-establish businesses’ general liquidity ratio.
The funds required to purchase raw materials, semi-manufactures, work-in-progress or stock, but also commercial loans and payment guarantee instruments, are eligible for financing.
However, this type of financing granted by the bank must meet an ongoing need and cover at least a two- year period.
All economic sectors are eligible except for a limited number of exclusions including defence, gambling, activities involving live animals for experimental and scientific purposes insofar as not compliant with the “Council of Europe’s Convention for the Protection of Vertebrate Animals used for Experimental and other Scientific Purposes”. Will also be excluded activities whose environmental impact cannot be mitigated or offset, ethically or morally controversial sectors such as human cloning, pure property speculation and consumer credit. The list is updated from time to time.
What advantages does the EIB create for SMEs ? The EIB requires its partner banks to onlend to SMEs the funds that it provides at favourable rates, adding an equivalent amount from their own funds. The EIB’s intermediary banks are obliged to pass on a financial benefit to the beneficiary SMEs which appears in most of the funding in the form of a favourable interest rate and provide them with information on the EIB’s involvement.
How does a small business obtain an EIB loan for SMEs ? All EIB loans for SMEs are channelled through intermediary banks, which examine the SMEs’ loan applications and decide whether or not to grant a loan, on which they bear the risk.
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