Bankinter is offering loans from the third tranche of ICO guarantees in addition to new facilities for renewals

Bankinter is ready to offer the loans for SMEs, other companies and sole traders under the third tranche of state-backed guarantees made available by the Instituto de Crédito Oficial (Spanish Credit Institute or ICO). Under this tranche, the recently approved has assigned the bank an instalment of 1.024 million euros in guarantees. Therefore, it will be able to extend an additional 1.3 billion euros in funding to companies. The guarantees cover about 80% of new loans.

Overall, with the three tranches already set up by the ICO and the reassigned first tranche owing to an amount not used in general in the sector, Bankinter will be capable of extending approximately 4.5 billion euros in loans to SMEs, other companies and sole traders to help them cope with the situation caused by coronavirus.

Bankinter has also taken a new measure as part of its shock plan to mitigate the economic impact of COVID-19. It has created a new line of facilities that is also backed by ICO guarantees and aims to renew financing for SMEs, larger enterprises and sole traders. It aims to provide a permanent funding lever that companies already used on a daily basis and which is now more necessary.

These renewal credit facilities afford companies the advantages of longer financing terms and lower interest rates than with regular renewals, in addition to an extra amount for any new requirements they have (since they are backed by state guarantees). They will not be the same as financing with better conditions; their conditions are not based on any standard. As the bank usually requires, each financial transaction will be analysed on a case by case basis, but will carry very competitive interest rates.

This new proposition will be processed much more quickly than other types of renewals, owing to Bankinter’s efforts to expedite all its processes. Last month, it also created a special digital signature to take out the ICO line; and loan processing teams have been working more intensely from the beginning to finalise each transaction as soon as possible.

At Bankinter, helping companies in the current situation is a priority. Therefore, the bank immediately activated the ICO line and took special measures for companies as part of its shock plan. These measures include payment holidays on loans for certain customers as well as reverse factoring post-financing and grace periods and term extensions on leases for SMEs and sole traders. Also, companies have the option of using pre-approved loans (initially to be used to make tax and social security payments) for any other purpose. Likewise, companies can increase or reset unused limits of their multi-line financing, a product to combine all funding needs in a single credit line.