The European Investment Fund (EIF) and UniCredit Bank Austria signed an agreement of EUR 90 million for supporting Austrian SMEs and Small Mid-Caps
The agreement includes two guarantee products made possible by the InvestEU Fund: Sustainability and Innovation & Digitalization.
This operation represents the first EIF engagement in Austria under InvestEU

UniCredit Bank Austria will benefit from a EUR 90 million guarantee amount from the European Investment Fund in order to improve the access to finance for Austrian SMEs, across two thematics: Sustainability and Innovation & Digitalization.

Thanks to the InvestEU Innovation and Digitalisation Guarantee of EUR 50 million, UniCredit Bank Austria will be able to further support innovation and digitalisation driven enterprises, by enhancing access to finance to Research & Innovation intensive SMEs and Small Mid-Caps, as well as supporting the uptake of digital technologies and digital transformation of enterprises.

Thanks to the InvestEU Sustainability Guarantee of EUR 40 million, UniCredit Bank Austria will be able to further support a green and sustainable transformation of the economy, and uptake of environmental-friendly, green and inclusive investments of the target final recipients.

EIF Chief Executive Alain Godard said: “The EIF is pleased to be working with UniCredit Bank Austria to provide additional access to finance for SMEs and small mid-caps. The combination of the EIF's investment and structuring expertise and the support of InvestEU offers a competitive financing solution for UniCredit Bank Austria which will serve to boost the supply of finance in the real economy.”

Valdis Dombrovskis, Executive Vice-President for an Economy that Works for People, said: “InvestEU offers Austrian businesses great opportunities to access the finance they need to innovate, expand and create jobs. The investments supported by this agreement are exactly the sort needed to power the green and digital transitions across the EU. I look forward to seeing more such agreements supported by InvestEU in Austria in the months and years ahead.”

Dieter Hengl, UniCredit Bank Austria board member responsible for Corporates, said: “I am very pleased that we are the first bank in Austria to join forces with EIF to support companies in investing in the strategic megatopics of innovation, digitalisation and sustainability. Through ‘InvestEU Innovation and Digitalisation Guarantee’ and ‘InvestEU Sustainability Guarantee’, we can enable our customers to invest in these important areas at particularly advantageous conditions. With this agreement we continue the success of the predecessor programmes that EIF and our Bank offered together.”

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 enterprises (SMEs) by helping them to access finance. The EIF designs and develops venture and growth capital, guarantees and microfinance instruments that specifically target this market segment. In this role, the EIF contributes to the pursuit of key EU policy objectives such as competitiveness and growth, innovation and digitalisation, social impact, skills and human capital, climate action and environmental sustainability and more.

The InvestEU programme provides the European Union with crucial long-term financing by mobilising significant public and private funds to support a sustainable recovery. It helps generate additional investments in line with key European priorities, such as the European Green Deal, the digital transition and support for SMEs. The InvestEU programme brings together all EU financial tools to support investment by making project financing simpler, more efficient and more flexible. The programme has three components: the InvestEU Fund, the InvestEU Advisory Hub and the InvestEU Portal. The InvestEU Fund is implemented through financial partners who will invest in projects using the EU budget guarantee of €26.2 billion. The entire budgetary guarantee will back the investment projects of the implementing partners, increase their risk-bearing capacity and thus mobilise at least €372 billion in additional investment.

UniCredit is a pan-European Commercial Bank with a unique service offering in Italy, Germany, Central and Eastern Europe. Our purpose is to empower communities to progress, delivering the best-in-class for all stakeholders, unlocking the potential of our clients and our people across Europe. We serve over 15 million customers worldwide. They are at the heart of what we do in all our markets. UniCredit is organized in four core regions and two product factories, Corporate and Individual Solutions. This allows us to be close to our clients and use the scale of the entire Group for developing and offering the best products across all our markets. Digitalisation and our commitment to ESG principles are key enablers for our service. They help us deliver excellence to our stakeholders and create a sustainable future for our clients, our communities and our people.

Press contacts

EIF: Donata Riedel, d.riedel@eib.org, tel.: +49 30 590047 90, mobile: +49 151 14659021
Website: www.eib.org/press — Press Office: +352 4379 21000 — press@eib.org

European Commission: Flora Matthaes, Flora.MATTHAES@ec.europa.eu, tel.: +32 229 83951
Website: https://investeu.europa.eu, #InvestEU

Unicredit: Matthias Raftl, matthias.raftl@unicreditgroup.at, Tel.: +43 (0)50505-52809
Website: https://www.bankaustria.at/