Portugal’s development bank BPF issues 160,000 pre-approved guarantees to companies in 1H 2025
The Banco Português de Fomento (BPF) gave the green light to 160,000 guarantees to 140,000 companies for €42Bn in the first half of 2025.
The development bank made the announcement on Thursday (July 17) in Lisbon at a presentation of its results and strategy for the rest of the year.
The figures, disclosed by the Executive President of the Bank, Gonçalo Regalado, demonstrate a strengthening of the bank’s financial execution and a consolidation of BPF’s mission as an instrument to support companies in Portugal and the national economy.
The majority of these guarantees (loans and grants) were earmarked for micro and SMEs with a focus in investment and cashflow requirements.
The BPF InvestEU line, now 100% digital and with simplified rules, received 14,000 applications for a total value of €3.2Bn.
Of these, 9,186 have already been approved, corresponding to €2.4Bn. The BPF Invest Export line, launched three weeks ago, has 1,986 applications, worth €1,069Bn – more than 50% of the budget allocated to SMEs.
The first six months of 2025 was marked by the start of BPF’s digital transformation. With the digitization of processes, the number of documents required was reduced from 27 to 5, the average response time dropped from 49 business days to just 48 hours for confirmation of approval and 7 business days for credit contracting.
The automation of eligibility criteria (more than 100,000 criteria already analysed) and the sending of more than 300,000 communications addressed to companies demonstrated the bank’s efforts to have a closer relationship with Portugal’s business network and to anticipate its needs.
Internally, the bank’s “People First” strategy is reinforcing the Bank’s organisational culture, with new training, recruitment and incentive policies, in addition to the creation of the Development Academy.
The goal of Portugal’s development bank, Banco Português de Fomento (BPF), is to promote the growth of the Portuguese economy, with a focus on supporting Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), mid-sized companies, and large companies considered strategically important. BPF does this by providing targeted funding, equity, and guarantees, often through intermediary financial institutions.
BPF estimates that it will mobilise more than €20Bn in guarantees throughout 2025, including €8.7 billion through BPF InvestEU, €3.5Bn from BPF Invest Export, €3Bn from BPF Portugal 2030, and €315 million from RRP (Recovery and Resilience Plan – (PRR) Inovação Empresarial.
To these national guarantees is added an additional mechanism with the EIB and the EIF, to the amount of €6.5Bn in the Fomento-FEI InvestEU.
In the area of capital, the Bank currently has around €2Bn available, of which €1.42Bn comes from the the RRP and €250 million from partnerships with the European Investment Fund (EIF).
By June, €1.09Bn in operations had been approved, with €973 million already contracted and €650 million effectively invested in companies.
BPF’s support for structuring projects includes Autoeuropa’s new electric vehicle assembly line (€400 million), the Automotive Cluster (€1,000 million in guarantees), the East Lisbon Hospital (Hospital de Lisboa Oriental) (€455 million with €15 million initial financing), the TGV High Speed Rail Line with €110 million from a performance bond and the International Center for Blue Biotechnology (€410 million). The Bank is leading the application for the AI Gigafactory in Portugal, with an investment potential of €4Bn and a material economic impact to 2030.
Commitment to the economy
The BPF’s strategic objective is to achieve 5% of GDP by the end of its current mandate. Gonçalo Regalado said at the results presentation “we’re the sovereign bank for companies and our commitment is to help those who invest, create jobs and believe in the future of the Portuguese economy.”.
Targets set by the end of the year
• Implement the Fomento-FEI InvestEU Programme with an additional €6.5Bn in financing for SMEs
• Launch a new line of €3Bn to support the implementation of Portugal 2030
• Expand the base of supported companies and ensure coverage throughout the business life cycle
• Accelerate the implementation of European funds with simpler and more efficient financing solutions
• Strengthening digitisation and new automatic decision flows from July 17, 2025
