Evaluation of the Risk Sharing Finance Facility (RSFF)

The Risk Sharing Initiative (RSI), managed by the EIF, was a pilot guarantee scheme managed by EIF in the 2007-2013 programming period.

RSI was launched in cooperation with the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Commission under the 7th EU Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP7) to improve access to debt finance of innovative SMEs and Small Mid-Caps to support their research & innovation projects. 

RSI was part of the Risk Sharing Finance Facility (RSFF), managed by the EIB, mainly addressing large Corporates and Mid-Caps. RSI was a response to an evident need to extend RSFF to the SME sector.

This evaluation provides a full assessment of the performance of the RSFF instrument (including analysis of the governance and EIB/EC cooperation), as well as final conclusions and recommendations from a Horizon 2020 perspective. 

Under the new 2014-2020 programming period, EIF is managing the InnovFin SME Guarantee Facility, RSI’s successor programme under Horizon 2020.