Irish banks to receive €300m in SME funding

Irish banks are in line to receive €300 million to lend to SMEs at preferential rates from the European Investment Bank (EIB) and other projects such as wind energy generation are in the pipeline.

But Ireland has never tapped the world’s largest bank capitalised by EU member states as much as most other countries.

It signed agreements worth over €60 billion, of which €53bn was for projects in the EU. €475m went to Ireland. They agreed to provide €150m to AIB, which they must match with the same sum for lending to SMEs. The EIB half of any loans must be 1.5% cheaper than the bank’s normal lending rate.