The European Investment Fund (EIF) and Finnish bank Oma Säästöpankki Oyj (OmaSp) have signed two guarantee agreements for social entrepreneurship and microfinance respectively in Finland under the EU Programme for Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI). This new financing agreement was made possible by the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), the core of the Investment Plan for Europe. The microfinance agreement allows OmaSp to provide EUR 40 million in loans to 2,600 micro-entrepreneurs over the next 5 years in Finland. On 19 November, the European Investment Bank (EIB) agreed to provide a EUR 25 million loan to Bankia to promote the creation of jobs for young people in Spain. Bankia will add up to EUR 25 million. On the occasion of the Austrian EU Presidency Conference “Innovative Enterprise Vienna 2018”, the EIF and the Austrian promotional bank Austria Wirtschaftsservice (aws) announced the signing of an additional up to EUR 48 million counter-guarantee as an extension to the existing InnovFin agreement enabling a new guarantee portfolio of up to EUR 96 million. The transaction is expected to finance an additional 150 innovative Austrian SMEs.