This week at the EBRD Annual Meeting the Bank launched its 10th Sustainability Report .The report looks back at sustainability-related successes and challenges from 2012 across a wide range of issues, including climate change, water and sanitation, gender, nuclear safety, public consultation, policy development and many others.… Read more
May 10 / 2013
Hungarian Deleveraging: What Do Bank CEOs Tell Us?
Hungary has been hit hard by the recent wave of bank deleveraging: credit to households and enterprises contracted more than in most other EBRD countries. Why? Three reasons spring to mind.
First, recent BIS data show that –together with banks in Slovenia and Croatia– Hungarian banks experienced the most severe reductions in funding from foreign creditors, including their own parents.… Read more
May 03 / 2013
Turkish equity: opening up for growth
A lot of business in Turkey is family owned. Whether it’s the first, second or third generation in charge, it can be difficult to contemplate bringing in outsiders as co-owners.
But as more companies realise the benefits of opening up, we see many great examples of companies bringing investors on board and benefitting everyone in the process.… Read more
April 26 / 2013
EBRD-CSO dialogue: Is social media the right communication tool?
Recently, the EBRD has been more consistently using social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google as well as the EBRD blog to reach out to civil society organisations in its countries of operations.
Social media helps the Bank to stay in touch with its private sector, government and civil society stakeholders across the EBRD region and to provide real time feeds about its activities.… Read more
April 25 / 2013
Can preferential lending programmes be the magic bullet to revive lending?
Earlier this month the Hungarian National Bank (MNB) announced a preferential Funding for Growth Scheme (FGS) and an FX swap facility, less than one month after Mr Matolcsy’s appointment as governor. It was presented as being inspired by the Funding for Lending Scheme launched by the Bank of England last year.… Read more
April 23 / 2013
Turkish SMEs: Financing small, thinking big
Ozcan Ozozan, the founder of a glass mould making company from Mersin, only has a vague idea about the EBRD. Yet when the company, Ozen Iş Makina, needed an urgent supply of raw materials for an extra order, this medium-sized business in the south of Turkey benefitted from a TL 200,000 (€85,000) loan from the EBRD’s credit line for SMEs, administered through Yapi Kredi Bank.… Read more
April 19 / 2013
Foreign Banks and the Global Crisis: Weathering the Perfect Storm
Over the last two decades many countries have opened their banking sectors to foreign investors in order to improve the quantity and quality of financial services available to local firms and households. How has this process of banking integration affected these countries and, in particular, did it make them more resilient or more susceptible to financial shocks?… Read more
April 16 / 2013
EBRD President meets civil society for the first time in the southern and eastern Mediterranean
On 17 March 2013, during his visit to Jordan EBRD President Suma Chakrabarti met with representatives of civil society and royal organisations in Amman. The meeting was in addition to his audience with King Abdullah and meetings with the highest representatives of the government, international community and businesses.… Read more
March 28 / 2013
March 28 / 2013
Western Balkans: Intensive high-level dialogue and consultations with civil society
During March 2013 the EBRD engaged in extensive dialogue with civil society in the Western Balkans, where consultations were conducted on the draft country strategies for Kosovo and FYR Macedonia, and Board Directors met with local civil society organisations in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.… Read more
March 27 / 2013