Spain-based energy company Iberdrola, together with BBVA and Santander, has arranged a EUR 150 million corporate syndicated financing facility administered entirely using distributed ledger technology (DLT). The transaction is presented by the parties as the first live syndicated loan whose full lifecycle runs on blockchain, from execution and disbursement through interest management, waivers, repayments, assignments, and maturity.
The facility was processed through a platform developed by ioBuilders with the support of the two banks, while Gómez-Acebo & Pombo acted as legal adviser. For Iberdrola, the deal forms part of a digital transformation strategy that relies on data and emerging technologies to streamline its financial and treasury processes.
How the platform works
The infrastructure allows participating institutions to maintain a single, synchronised, and immutable record of loan data. This replaces the reconciliation of separate databases, a standard feature of syndicated lending, with one shared source of information. Participants interact under the operational control of the agent bank appointed for the financing.
Throughout the life of the loan, the platform coordinates the main contractual events. These include the calculation and notification of interest, payments of principal and fees, early repayments, monitoring of financial covenants and information undertakings, the processing of certain contractual consents, and transfers of participations between lenders. Each event is recorded on the DLT infrastructure and is visible in real time to authorised participants.
Alberto Falco, Head of Portfolio Monitoring and Innovation at BBVA CIB, said that the model combines DLT’s function as an immutable record with smart contract programmability to automate operational processes. ioBuilders stated that the transaction was carried out with full legal validity.
Syndicated lending is one of the core segments of corporate finance, but it has traditionally involved a high administrative burden and intensive coordination between the agent bank, lending banks and the borrower. It was also noted that the product has seen limited digitalisation and has been accessible to relatively few clients.
The parties argue that applying DLT to this market can simplify lifecycle management, reduce operating costs, and improve coordination between institutions. They also suggest it may increase market liquidity and make syndicated financing more accessible to mid-sized companies by simplifying processes that have historically limited their participation. Carlos Matilla, CEO of ioBuilders, added that the underlying technology could support more efficient balance sheet management for financial institutions, including new approaches to loan mobilisation in the secondary market.
Next steps
Following this first transaction, the institutions plan to onboard new participants progressively and expand the platform’s functionalities. The stated objective is to build a shared infrastructure for the syndicated loan market rather than a proprietary tool for the founding banks.
Rob Kay, Global Head of Investment Grade and Emerging Markets Debt at Santander CIB, described the deal as the basis for an industry collaboration model and an example of digital assets generating tangible value for the business. BBVA, for its part, aims for the platform to become a meeting point that other institutions can join. Whether that ambition is realised will depend on the onboarding phase the institutions have identified as their next focus.
