Ukraine's Kredobank and EBRD sign risk-sharing agreement to extend 35 mln euros in loans to Ukrainian businesses

MOSCOW. Dec 22 (Interfax) - Ukraine's Kredobank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) on Wednesday signed an agreement on a risk-sharing facility to extend 35 million euros in new lending to companies operating in agriculture, pharmaceuticals, food processing, retail, and logistics.

Loans as part of the EBRD risk-sharing agreement will become available from mid-January 2023, Ukrainian media said, citing the banks' press release.

"Thanks to the signed risk-sharing agreement with the EBRD, we will relieve ourselves of some of loan-related risks and will be able to offer loans on more favorable terms to Ukrainian entrepreneurs," Kredobank CEO Jerzy Jacek Szugajew said, according to the press release.

Under the agreement between the two institutions, the EBRD will back 50% of the credit risk of newly originated financing provided by Kredobank up to a total value of 35 million euros, subject to a portfolio cap of 50 per cent. The EBRD's share of risk comes to 8.75 million euros.

The guarantee comes in the wake of similar facilities signed in November this year and brings its total volume of enabled financing to 288 million euros since the start of the crisis.

Kredobank, which was founded in Lvov in 1990, is a leading bank and a subsidiary of PKO Bank Polski, a major financial institution of Poland.

Kredobank ranked 14th by total assets (38.82 billion hryvni) among Ukraine's 67 banks as of the beginning of November.