Citizen Loan: Director Seeks €1.5 Million to Secure Funding

The Basque coast hospital center is looking for financing solutions, while the Regional Health Agency has given it five years to make up its deficit of 21 million euros.

Frédéric Espenel, director of the Bayonne hospital, ensures on Wednesday February 11 HERE Basque Country that the million and a half euros he hopes to raise “aims to ensure the current financing of the establishment”. The hospital is indeed seeking to raise this sum via “a citizen loan”. Residents thus have the opportunity to invest to participate in the operation of the hospital. Each resident can invest their money from 1 euro and will be reimbursed “after 12 months”in one go, with interest, set at “3.1% annual gross”which is more than certain regulated livrets, such as Livret A. This is the largest operation of this kind in France.

“The Basque Coast Hospital Center (CHCB) has a budget of 450 million euros used to pay for staff, medicines and food”explains the director. Of the “cash needs” daily “since there is a time lag between the time we make these expenses and the time the money comes to us from Social Security”.

To achieve this, the hospital partnered with the company “Villyz”, founded by Arthur Moraglia. The latter ensures that this alternative is “win-win on both sides: for the hospital which will borrow cheaper and for the citizens who will have a more profitable savings product, directly targeted to the territory, very transparent: we know what we are financing”.

“It works everywhere, because everywhere there is a desire among citizens to be able to place their savings in their local public services, close to home, for themselves and their loved ones.”

Frédéric Espenel, director of Bayonne hospital

at franceinfo

The money is “100% arrowed”he asserts, “100% confined to bank accounts during collection before being loaned to the hospital”. For the entrepreneur, the question to ask is who finances from the moment there is a need: “A banking player? Or the citizens who finance their public services?”

Before the Bayonne hospital, other establishments had also used the same process: “the hospital of Haguenau (Bas-Rhin), that of Evreux (Eure) at the end of 2025 or that of Fréjus – Saint-Raphaël (Var) in July”.