Iberdrola, BBVA and Banco Santander presented on 15 October 2026 a syndicated financing operation worth €150 million that runs on distributed ledger technology (DLT) from start to finish. The three companies describe it as the first time a syndicated loan's entire lifecycle, rather than just its negotiation and signing, has been managed through a blockchain platform.
The platform was developed by ioBuilders in collaboration with BBVA and Santander. Despite the shift to DLT, the operation still sits within conventional banking structures: coordination of the loan remains under the operational control of the designated agent bank, as in any traditional syndicated facility.
A step beyond the 2018 precedent
This is not the first time Spanish institutions have applied blockchain to syndicated lending. In 2018, Red Eléctrica Corporación, BBVA, BNP Paribas and MUFG arranged a syndicated financing operation of the same size, €150 million, using DLT to handle negotiation and formalisation of the contract.
The difference, according to the entities involved, lies in scope. The 2018 operation confined blockchain's role to drafting and signing the agreement. The platform used in the Iberdrola, BBVA and Santander operation extends further, managing events throughout the entire life of the loan rather than only its initial contracting phase.
No figures on savings, no public settlement
The announcement did not include concrete figures on cost savings or time reductions achieved through the use of the technology. Nor was the operation presented as a transfer of €150 million settled on a public blockchain; the DLT infrastructure underpins the management of the loan's lifecycle rather than serving as a public settlement layer for the funds themselves.
BBVA and Santander said they intend to work on progressively incorporating new participants into the platform and expanding its functionalities, suggesting the current operation is conceived as a starting point rather than a finished product.
For European banks and corporates watching the slow adoption of distributed ledger technology in wholesale finance, the operation offers a concrete, if modest, data point: a named loan, a named set of institutions, and a platform whose remit has been deliberately broadened since the last comparable test eight years earlier.
