The EIF published an information notice for existing financial intermediaries under the SME Initiative Italy. Regarding the terms of the Call for Expression of Interest, specific measures have been adopted to mitigate the economic impact of the covid-19 pandemic on the Italian SMEs, and to support their working capital. Please check the full details in the notice.

The SME Initiative (SMEI) - launched in Italy in October 2016 - is co-financed by the Republic of Italy, the European Commission and the EIB Group - the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Investment Fund (EIF) - with EIF managing the scheme on behalf of the different contributors.

SMEI is a public-private partnership acting as catalyst for private investments and supporting economic growth and job creation in southern Italy (the so called “Mezzogiorno”) which includes 8 Regions: Abruzzo, Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Molise, Puglia, Sardinia and Sicily.

To this end, it entails an innovative use of European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) combining the latter with additional national resources, EU central budget (resources from the programme for the Competitiveness of Enterprises and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (COSME) and EIB Group funds.

Through the use of securitisation structures (both funded and synthetic unfunded), the EUR 202.5m of contribution of the Republic of Italy - of which EUR 102.5m of ESIF from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and EUR 100m of national resources - leveraged with commercial lending, are expected to generate about 1.2bn of new SME loans at favorable terms in southern Italy.

Under SMEI Italy, EIF will enter into securitisation transactions of existing portfolios of debt finance to SMEs and Small Mid-Caps. The selected financial intermediaries shall in turn undertake to provide new lending to SMEs located in the Mezzogiorno area, multiplying both the contribution of the Republic of Italy and of COSME allocated to the relevant underlying securitisation transaction. For details, refer to the Call for Expression of Interest below.

Update: An information note to financial intermediaries with regard to additional funds to be allocated and changes in transaction terms has been published on 12 February 2020. Click here for further details.

How to benefit from the SME Initiative Italy

For financial institutions:

If you are eligible to become an EIF financial intermediary, you can download all the application documents here below and apply by 31 December 2019 responding in full to the Call for Expression of Interest. The application documents include important information about the SME Initiative financial instruments, the eligibility and exclusion criteria for financial intermediaries and about the selection process. Applications will be processed on a “first come and first assessed" basis as described in the Call for Expression of Interest.

Any personal data shall be processed by EIF in compliance with its Data Protection Statements and the Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by the Union institutions, bodies offices and agencies and on the free movement of such data, as amended from time to time.

For SMEs
EIF does not finance entrepreneurs or SMEs directly, but only via financial intermediaries. If you are looking for finance and would like to see which financial intermediaries currently cooperate with us in Italy, please visit www.eif.org/what_we_do/where/it/index.htm

For information about funding available under other EU initiatives, please visit http://europa.eu/youreurope/business/funding-grants/access-to-finance/

HIGHLIGHTS

SME Initiative to provide new financing worth EUR 1.2 billion for southern Italy, Sicily and Sardinia

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