Instituto de Crédito Oficial
Instituto de Crédito Oficial, Spain
general information
ICO is a state-owned bank, attached to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Competitiveness via the State Secretariat for Economy and Enterprise Support. It is a credit institution and the State Finance Agency, with its own legal status, assets and treasury, as well as an independent management to fulfill its activities.
ICO finances itself on the national and international markets. The debts and obligations it enters into with third parties benefit from the explicit, irrevocable, unconditional and direct guarantee of the Spanish state.
ICO's aim is to promote economic activities contributing to the growth and development of the country and to improve the distribution of the national wealth. Particularly, those activities of a social, cultural, environmental or innovative significance are awarded special attention.
These activities are performed by ICO in its twofold function of a state-owned bank and as the State Financial Agency. In 2020, ICO became Implementing Partner of the EC.
State-Owned Bank
As a state-owned bank, ICO provides financing for investment operations inside and outside of Spain, in three ways:
- On-lending facilities: ICO designs and sets the main features of the different credit facilities and signs the corresponding collaboration agreements with the financial institutions for them to be distributed through their networks. These facilities are mainly directed at the self-employed and SMEs. ICO sets the amounts of each credit facility, the purpose of the loans, the interest rates and repayment terms, and provides the funds to the financial institutions. The latter bear the risk on final beneficiaries and decide the guarantees to be provided.
- Direct funding: Corporate and structured finance for large projects involving productive, public or private investments. Loans are taylor made to match the company's needs, with a notional minimum amount of €10 million and long repayment terms. Companies shall approach ICO directly. Funding is granted preferably in collaboration with private or public entities, whether national, international or multilateral. ICO also provides guarantees for international projects and for Spanish companies participating in international tenders. As Implementing Partner of the Commission, ICO also provides blending financing linked to European programmes such as CEF or other RRF/NGEU national programs, as well as invests in sustainable infrastructure funds with the InvestEU support.
- Private-venture Capital. ICO provides equity and mezzanine financing to a wide variety of companies and projects through Axis, its funds manager subsidiary.
State
Finance Agency
As a State Financial Agency, ICO manages the official funding instruments on behalf of the Spanish state, through which it encourages exports and development aid. This includes also ICO funding on express instructions from the Government for those affected by natural disasters, environmental disasters and other events of general interest, or managing guarantee relief schemes (such as Covid) . For these operations ICO does not bear the risk and acts after public funds have been provided and/or through compensation of interest rate differentials.
contact
Mr. Martín Larroque - International Relations Department
28014 Madrid, Spain
Fax: +34 91 592 1668
Web: http://www.ico.es
