National Bank of Greece EUR 650 million securitisation transaction for SMEs

The European Investment Fund (EIF) has participated as an investor, alongside the European Investment Bank (EIB), in an SME securitisation, originated by National Bank of Greece (NBG).

This is the first foray of a Greek financial institution in a public SME securitisation transaction and marks the return of the bank’s activity in the capital markets. It will further allow NBG to diversify its current sources of financing. NBG has committed to deploying an amount equal to twice the amount of funds received for new Greek SME lending.

Commenting on the investment, EIF’s Chief Executive, Pier Luigi Gilibert, said: “I am pleased that EIF was one of the investors in NBG’s inaugural SME securitisation in Greece. This is very much in line with our mission of providing risk financing to financial institutions for the benefit of SMEs. We firmly believe that our investment will help the National Bank of Greece to increase its lending commitments for Greek SMEs.”

Last year alone, EIF committed approximately EUR 1bn to securitisation transactions, including support for mezzanine tranches and covering both funding and regulatory capital relief transactions.

Press contacts:

EIF: David Yormesor, E-mail: d.yormesor@eif.org, Tel.: +352 42 66 88 346