OREANDA-NEWS. June 03, 2010. The EBRD is lending Rosbank, a leading Russian private bank controlled by France’s Societe Generale group, 5.25 billion roubles (equivalent to 135 million Euros at current exchange rates) in total in two separate loans to make more credit available to the country’s small businesses, as well as to fund the energy efficiency projects of its clients, reported the press-centre of EBRD.    

Rosbank has Russia’s third largest regional branch network.

Providing small business funding and encouraging a rational use of energy are both long-standing EBRD goals, particularly in Russia, whose energy intensity is about three times that of India, Japan or the United Kingdom and where the financial crisis made it generally much harder for many small businesses to access credit.

The loan to Rosbank consists of two tranches. A five-year senior loan of 4.4 billion roubles (equivalent to 113 million Euros at current exchange rates) is earmarked for medium-term local currency credits to privately-owned small businesses, as part of the EBRD’s anti-crisis response in order to finance investments and working capital.

In addition, a five-year energy efficiency loan of 875 million roubles (equivalent to 22 million Euros at current exchange rates) will be used to help Rosbank’s industrial clients invest in energy-conservation projects which will make their businesses more efficient and competitive.

Because of its broad client base and one of the largest branch networks in the country, Rosbank has the advantage of offering direct access to the real sector of the economy throughout the regions of Russia and, particularly, the small business sector which the bulk of this loan is targeted at, thus ensuring an efficient use of these funds, said George Orlov, Director of the EBRD’s Financial Institutions business in Russia.

In the summer of 2009, the EBRD launched a programme known as the Russian Sustainable Energy and Carbon Finance Facility which made 300 million USD available to Russian banks willing to promote energy efficiency loans to clients. The energy efficiency loan to Rosbank is being made under this framework.

Participating banks and sub-borrowers can benefit from free-of-charge assistance to identify profitable energy-saving measures and quantify the associated benefits, including any reductions in greenhouse gas emissions which may qualify for carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol’s Joint Implementation Mechanism.

Since the EBRD launched its Sustainable Energy Initiative (SEI) throughout its countries of operation in 2006, the Bank has, in Russia alone, funded energy efficiency-related investments totalling 1.2 billion Euros.