The EIB, DZ BANK and VR LEASING support SMEs

10-12-2012 — /europawire.eu/ — The European Investment Bank (EIB), together with DZ BANK and VR LEASING, is providing EUR 100m for small and medium-sized corporate customers of Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken. This loan will support primarily the financing operations and projects of innovative SMEs, which due to their size are unable to raise funds on the capital market.

For SMEs in particular, access to credit has become difficult since the beginning of the financial crisis.  Even medium-sized companies, the so-called Mid-Caps with up to 3000 employees, are faced with major funding challenges: they are often too large for a bank loan, but too small to raise funds by issuing shares or bonds.  At the same time, Mid-Caps are frequently innovation-based companies that are heavily dependent on investment in research and development.  Access to simple and rapid financing facilities via banks and leasing companies is therefore crucial for the success of these companies.

At the signing of the contract, Wilhelm Molterer, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank whose responsibilities include financing operations in Germany, stated, “With this framework loan that has just been signed, we are also promoting in this way the project financing of mid-size businesses. Together with our partners DZ BANK and VR LEASING, we are providing targeted support for the economic sector which has been hit the hardest by the retrenchment of the banking sector, i.e. SMEs and Mid-Cap companies, since it is precisely this sector that generates growth and jobs.”

As the bank of the European Union, the EIB provides advantageous funding for projects that are economically viable and in line with EU political objectives. Priority is given to investment in innovation and skills (with increasing emphasis on education and training), the promotion of SMEs and Mid-Cap companies and financing of resource efficiency and strategically important infrastructure, especially in the fields of transport, energy and communications. Since SME and Mid-Cap financing operations generally involve smaller amounts, the EIB does not provide these loans directly but through intermediary banks. These are long-standing partners of the EIB, such as DZ BANK in this case, the central institution for more than 900 cooperative banks. As a complement to standard lending, DZ BANK also passes on funds to VR LEASING in Eschborn and thus supports the customers of Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken with additional low-cost funding.

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Eva Henkel
e.henkel@eib.org
+352 43 79 – 82147
+352 621 33 91 30
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