BBVA and Santander arranged a €150 million corporate syndicated financing facility for Iberdrola on a platform using distributed ledger technology. The banks said it was the first live syndicated loan whose entire lifecycle is administered through blockchain. The system covers execution and disbursement as well as interest, waivers, repayments, assignments and maturity. The transaction was announced on 15 October.
The platform was developed by ioBuilders with support from BBVA and Santander, while Gómez-Acebo & Pombo acted as legal adviser. It gives authorised participants a single, synchronised and immutable record instead of requiring reconciliation across separate databases. Contractual events are visible to permitted users in real time. The lenders did not disclose the facility’s pricing or maturity in the announcement.
DIGITISING THE LOAN LIFECYCLE
The platform coordinates interest calculations and notices, principal and fee payments, early repayments and checks on financial covenants and information undertakings. It also processes certain contractual consents and transfers of loan participations between lenders. These functions are recorded on the shared ledger under the operational control of the appointed agent bank.
BBVA said the infrastructure combines blockchain’s immutable record with programmable smart contracts to automate operational processes. Santander said the transaction demonstrated how distributed ledgers could improve efficiency, transparency and traceability in complex financing. The announcement describes digital administration of an existing loan rather than the issuance of a tokenised debt security.
ADOPTION WILL DETERMINE SCALE
The participants said they intend to add more institutions and expand the platform’s functions. They argue that lower operating costs and simpler coordination could improve secondary-market mobilisation and make syndicated lending more accessible to mid-sized companies. Those potential benefits will depend on broader lender participation and repeat transactions beyond the inaugural facility.
The transaction provides a live test of whether shared-ledger infrastructure can reduce the administrative burden of syndicated lending without changing the underlying legal framework. Banks will now watch whether additional lenders join, how transfers and amendments perform over the facility’s life, and whether the platform is used for further corporate loans. Those milestones will show whether the project becomes market infrastructure or remains a limited bilateral initiative.