Bankinter adheres to the Code of Good Practices to help companies renegotiate their loans guaranteed by the ICO
The bank's goal is to support companies in strengthening their solvency, which has been eroded by the impact of the pandemic, in order to contribute to a faster recovery.
Bankinter will apply the voluntary Code of Good Practices approved by the government. With this, the bank commits to applying the framework set out in the code in order to support companies that were solvent before Covid-19 and whose financial situation has been damaged by the situation that has arisen.
The ultimate goal of this collaboration and the commitments undertaken, together with other measures of financial support for companies that the bank has put in place from the outset, is to help the Spanish business community to recover as quickly as possible.
This Code of Good Practices stipulates the commitments taken on by both banks and financed companies to restructure their debt and give them financial relief. In the framework approved by the government, a new extension of ICO guarantees was included in order to maintain these guarantees in cases in which the loans become participating loans and, as a last resort, approve haircuts to reduce the principal capital of this financial debt.
By adhering to this Code of Good Practices, the bank pledges to: evaluate the use of measures requested by the debtor company and extend the term of the guaranteed financing when the company meets the requirements, as well as examine the total of its debts so that the restoration of business solvency does not rely solely on the loan with the ICO guarantee. Likewise, a commitment is established to maintain the working capital lines until at least December 2022, and not to link the application of measures to the contracting of other products, nor to increase the cost of financing beyond the cost of the guarantee, which is increased by the higher cost applied by ICO to the financial institution due to the longer term.
Among the requirements that companies requesting restructuring must meet are having suffered a revenue reduction of at least 30% in 2020, and having recorded a negative result last year without having defaulted or entered into bankruptcy proceedings.
In this new framework, the maximum terms are eight and ten years, depending on the time frame of the companies' operations.
Banco de España will supervise proper compliance with the Code of Good Practices.