IFC TO HELP ARMENIA’S ARDSHININVESTBANK IMPROVE RISK MANAGEMENT PRACTICES
The Financial
Oct 21 2009
Georgia
The FINANCIAL — IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, signed an
advisory services agreement with Armenia’s Ardshininvestbank to help
improve the bank’s risk management practices and increase lending to
smaller businesses.
The agreement is part of IFC’s broader regional crisis-response
initiative focused on strengthening the banking sector to make it
more sustainable.
"Ardshininvestbank is among the top three banks in Armenia and
has an extensive branch network. In light of the recent financial
crisis, IFC is helping the bank enhance its capacity to deal with
nonperforming loans, mitigate risks, and strengthen its lending to
local entrepreneurs and small and medium enterprises to stimulate
economic development and job creation," IFC reported.
"As a leading Armenian bank, Ardshininvestbank has attached
great importance to risk assessment and management practices
since its establishment," said Karen Balasanyan, Deputy Chairman
of Ardshininvestbank’s Management Board. "We value very much the
cooperation with IFC and are confident that our clients will notice
the impact of advisory services rendered by IFC experts in the near
future."
Thomas Lubeck, IFC Regional Head of the Caucasus, said, "We are
happy to help one of Armenia’s largest banks address the effects of
the global financial crisis and increase the sustainability of its
operations. This should create additional opportunities for economic
growth in the country."
IFC, the largest multilateral financial institution investing in the
private sector in emerging markets, has launched a broad and targeted
set of initiatives to help private enterprises cope with the global
financial and economic crisis. These initiatives aim to coordinate
responses by individual institutions, catalyze action and investment
from other stakeholders, and provide targeted support through IFC’s
investment and advisory services to the sectors most affected.
In addition to providing advisory and investment services to individual
clients in Armenia, IFC also organizes seminars to train financial
sector executives and managers in credit risk assessment and analysis
to help ensure that portfolio risk is properly reflected on bank
balance sheets
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
