Nordea and EIF: New financing for Nordic SMEs under European Guarantee Fund

Nordea introduces a new range of guaranteed lending solutions to SMEs in Finland, Sweden and Denmark together with the European Investment Fund under its new guarantee programme, the European Guarantee Fund (EGF).

An agreement signed by Nordea and the European Investment Fund will provide Nordea with €700 million in guarantee capacity for 2021. Thus, the guarantee programme enables Nordea to offer €1 billion of new financing to its customers on more favourable terms.

“At Nordea Business Banking, we want to contribute actively to initiatives supporting SMEs that are driving economic recovery and fuelling growth. This is yet another tool for us to support our customers. We are proud to have been approved by the European Investment Fund to take part in the implementation of this European initiative and generate further financial support to relevant SMEs in Finland, Denmark and Sweden,” says Nina Arkilahti, Head of Nordea Business Banking.

The European Guarantee Fund was founded recently by the European Investment Bank Group (comprising the EIB and the EIF) and EU Member States to ensure that SMEs with sustainable business plans are provided liquidity to overcome COVID-19 related adversities, and that healthy business are supported to grow.

“We’re very happy to partner with Nordea for this transaction under the new European Guarantee Fund.” said EIF Chief Executive Alain Godard. “The EGF is a pan-European tool, part of the EU’s recovery package, that will allow us to heavily increase our support for small businesses, in the Nordics and other EU member states. Businesses have suffered over the last year and we’re thankful that we can build on our partnership with Nordea to channel much needed financing to them.”

The European Guarantee Fund programme supplements Nordea’s lending capacity – which is already very strong – as well as lending solutions for SMEs. “In the coming weeks, Nordea will start reaching out to relevant customers with healthy business plans and present this additional opportunity to improve their liquidity situation on favorable and safe terms. We will ensure that our advice and support are available to our customers in these challenging times,” says Nina Arkilahti.

Nordea is the largest corporate bank in the Nordics with around 500,000 corporate customers and lending volumes of around €85 billion.

Background Information:

The European Investment Fund (EIF) is part of the European Investment Bank Group. Its central mission is to support Europe's micro, small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) by helping them to access finance. EIF designs and develops venture and growth capital, guarantees and microfinance instruments which specifically target this market segment. In this role, EIF fosters EU objectives in support of innovation, research and development, entrepreneurship, growth and employment.

The European Guarantee Fund (EGF) was set up by the EIB Group with contributions from Sweden, Denmark, Finland and other EU Member States to shield companies suffering from the COVID-19 crisis. Using nearly €25 billion in guarantees, the EGF allows the EIB and the EIF to quickly make loans, guarantees, asset-backed securities, equity and other financial instruments available to mostly small and medium-sized enterprises. The EGF is part of the European Union’s recovery package aiming to provide a total of €540 billion boost those parts of the EU economy that have been hit the worst.

Nordea is a leading Nordic universal bank. We are helping our customers realise their dreams and aspirations – and we have done that for 200 years. We want to make a real difference for our customers and the communities where we operate – by being a strong and personal financial partner. The Nordea share is listed on the Nasdaq Helsinki, Nasdaq Copenhagen and Nasdaq Stockholm exchanges. Read more about us on nordea.com.

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