The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has signed an agreement with Ukraine’s OTP Bank (Kyiv), approved in early December, to cover up to 50% of the credit risk on the bank’s new EUR200 million loans, the EBRD said in a statement on Monday.
“This is the fifth and largest such loan agreement provided by the EBRD to OTP, building on the successful cooperation between the two institutions to date,” the release said.
It is specified that this will enable the bank to finance critical sectors such as agriculture, energy, manufacturing, and transportation.
The EBRD’s participation in the project, estimated at EUR 60 million, will be supported by first-loss risk coverage funded by donors, including the European Union (EU), under the UIF Ukraine Facility.
It is also noted that, taking into account this project, the total amount of financing under similar EBRD guarantees signed since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine is almost EUR 2 billion.
Up to 20% of the project’s risk-sharing loans will be used to support long-term investments by private micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in EU-compliant and green technologies that increase their competitiveness in domestic and foreign markets. Upon completion of the investment projects, these sub-borrowers will receive EU-funded investment grants under the EU4Business initiative, as well as technical assistance. The EBRD has already allocated EUR 66 million in grant support for Ukrainian MSMEs under the EBRD-EU4Business credit line, including EUR 5 million for projects through the TFP.
According to the bank’s website, the guarantees are planned to be provided in three tranches: two in the amount of EUR 22.5 million, each covering EUR 75 million, and one in the amount of EUR 15 million to cover EUR 50 million of the loan portfolio.
According to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), as of November 1, 2024, OTP Bank, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Hungarian OTP Bank, ranked 11th (UAH 116.9 billion) in terms of total assets among 62 banks in the country. The financial institution’s net profit for 10 months of last year amounted to UAH 4.82 billion.
Since Russia’s invasion in 2022, the EBRD has lent more than EUR 5.4 billion to Ukraine, including more than EUR 1.6 billion last year.
