What we do in Financial Institutions

The EBRD’s role in the financial sector involves these key objectives:

• Promote market-based financial institutions within a healthy and efficient financial sector
• Support private and entrepreneurial initiatives
• Engage in policy dialogue with authorities to strengthen regulatory/legislative frameworks
• Be the leader in supporting strong corporate governance, institution building and sound banking principles.

By providing project finance, the EBRD is able to tailor solutions to meet clients’ requirements. Equity finance can be used to support institutional building, whereas product-focused credit lines can be instrumental in directing finance to a particular segment such as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) or energy efficiency.

For many projects, donor support is critical to achieve successful institutional reform and product delivery. For example, with Technical Cooperation (TC), the Bank is providing training for staff in areas such as risk management, energy efficiency financing, micro and small business lending, anti-money laundering and corporate governance.

The financial institutions’ portfolio is well diversified in terms of geographic coverage, sector and products, with just over one-third in equity and the remainder in debt (loans and guarantees). In 2008 the Bank remained very active in the financial sector, with new business reaching €1.94 billion and the portfolio growing by 5 per cent to €7.0 billion. The Bank has continued to expand its activities outside central Europe, moving further south and east. Russia received the largest volume of any single country at €515 million. One-third of projects, with a total investment of €320 million, were located in the Early Transition Countries.

Last updated 26 April 2010