Astrid Bartels works in the Directorate General for the Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs of the European Commission. She has been with the COSME Financial Instruments unit for the past three years where she is responsible for the co-ordination of the implementation of the COSME Financial Instruments. Prior to this position, she worked in the area of chemicals legislation where she was instrumental to the setting up of the European Chemicals Agency in Helsinki. Before joining the European Commission she was a corporate relationship manager with Deutsche Bank for ten years and spent two years as a Management Consultant with Bain & Company. She holds an MBA from the Kenan-Flagler Business School of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

1. 1
COSME Financial Instruments:
Policy objectives and design of
the debt instrument
AECM Seminar: Guarantees for innovative SMEs: Ways to
prosperity (Berlin), 19 June 2015
Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry,
Entrepreneurship and SMEs
Unit: COSME Financial Instruments
Astrid Bartels (Team Leader)

2. 2
 First European programme which is only dedicated to
the support of broad range of SMEs (2014 – 2020)
 At least 60% of total budget to be dedicated to
financial instruments => € 1.3 billion
 Debt and equity financial instrument for SMEs
 Loan Guarantee Facility (LGF)
 Equity Facility for Growth (EFG)
Both facilities part of a single EU debt/equity financial
instrument for enterprises’ growth and R&I financed
through COSME and Horizon 2020
What is the COSME Programme and
what can it do?

3. 3
Economic reality:
Significantly decreased lending in the
EUR zone since financial crisis
Amountsareinmillionsofeuro

4. 4
 Support those SMEs which would otherwise not obtain
financing (concept of additionality); focus on smaller
tickets
 Work with broad range of financial intermediaries
across all COSME participating countries
 Provide direct/counter-guarantees with focus on higher
risk SMEs/higher risk SME transactions (risk-sharing)
 Provide guarantees for mezzanine tranche of
securitisation transactions to support new SME lending
Overall target: Support up to 330,000 SMEs; provide up
to € 21 billion in financing
Policy Objective of the COSME Loan Guarantee
Facility

5. 5
1. COSME Regulation
2. Financial Regulation governing the
implementation of the EU budget
3. State Aid rules
These rules are to be respected in full by the Commission
and the entrusted entity (the European Investment Fund)
rolling out the LGF
Framework conditions to be respected during
implementation

6. 6
 LGF can be implemented stand-alone or in combination
 COSME direct/counter-guarantees are capped and free
of charge (portfolio guarantees)
 Max. guarantee rate 50% per loan
 Max. cap rate 20% (set at level of expected loss of
future portfolio)
 Financial intermediary (e.g. in on-lending model) may
combine with
 additional risk cover (up to 80% in total), 20% risk retention
 liquidity
COSME LGF in combination with other sources
of funding/risk taking

7. 7
 COSME guarantees under LGF are consistent with State
Aid rule
 Consistency means:
 instrument is designed respecting State Aid principles
 No notification requirements for Financial Intermediaries/SMEs
 If financial intermediaries combine COSME guarantee
with other public sources (national or regional), only
national or regional sources are subject to compliance
with State Aid rules
COSME LGF and State Aid

8. 8
 EFSI part focusing on SME financing is additional to
COSME financial instruments for SMEs
 Part of EFSI will be used to boost COSME LGF to
ensure higher financing in the coming three years
 EFSI boost avoids disruption in COSME LGF roll-out
(COSME budget is insufficient to meet market demand)
COSME LGF and the European Fund for Strategic
Investment (EFSI)

9. 9
 EIF has launched continuous open calls for expression of
interest through its website (open until 30 September
2020):
 LGF:
http://www.eif.org/what_we_do/guarantees/single_eu_debt_i
nstrument/cosme-loan-facility-growth/index.htm
 EFG:
http://www.eif.org/what_we_do/equity/single_eu_equity_instr
ument/cosme_efg/index.htm
 List of Participating Countries in COSME available on this
website:
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/initiatives/cosme/index_en.htm
How can financial intermediaries apply?

10. How will SMEs be informed ?
 Single portal on EU access to finance
 Provides information on how SMEs can apply for financing
(guarantees, loans and equity financing) supported by
various EU programmes
 Allows searching by country and by type of financing
needed
 Functionality to be further fine-tuned in the future
 Businesses can still apply for financing from EU
programmes from previous programming period (2007-
2013)
10

11. access2eufinance.ec.europa.eu 11

12. Thank you for your attention!
12