OREANDA-NEWS. July 08, 2008. Establishment of cooperation between the EBRD and the OJSC “Eskhata Bank” is a significant event in the history of “Eskhata Bank”, reported the press-centre of Eskhata Bank.

From the early days of such cooperation the EBRD extended technical assistance to “Eskhata Bank” for improvement its corporate governance system and organizational structure. Implementation of the IBP project was accompanied by participating into the Banks shareholding equity. The purpose of such participation was to implement institutional building in the Bank, to achieve efficient financing of Micro and Small enterprises. This project had been financed from ETC Fund of the EBRD.

Attracting LFS (Financial Systems) consultants is one of the first phases of the Technical Assistance of the EBRD with the aid of donors which was targeted at implementing new products for development of SME businesses and accordingly poverty mitigation. The consultants assisted the Bank management to implementing principles of SME crediting, to setting up a Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise Credit Department, also trained the Bank personnel in crediting procedures. This undertaking resulted at considerable growth of the Bank loan portfolio and improvement its quality.

Enjoying the support of the EBRD, donors and utilizing its own resources the Bank to improve the quality of its loan portfolio, to carry out restructuring of its corporate governance, to manage its credit risks attracted consultants on the following fields:

Treatment of loans

IT systems

Audit Controls

Crediting of agro, micro, small businesses

These consultants offered their suggestions and recommendations for improvement and maintaining the Bank’s Credit Policy, improving the quality of the employees performance, including improving quality of services both in crediting and in IT systems.

Besides for the last 3 years the EBRD rendered a Technical Assistance to the Bank on capacity building in sales of banking products using modern tools, also the EBRD covered a part of the Bank’s expenses for it to become a member of SWIFT settlement system.

Presently a project is being implemented together with the EBRD on implementation of the new IT system which will enable to improve automation of business processes of the all the divisions of the Bank. Implementation of the new IT system will allow to set up a unified technological platform of the Bank.

Thanks to the support of the EBRD and cooperation with it within the last 4,5 years Eskhata Bank achieved to restructure its governance structure according to the best international practices, increased considerably its loan portfolio, increased its equity at that improving quality of its services offered to clients and the Bank’s overall performance.

We kindly thank the EBRD and our donors for guiding Eskhata Bank into the right path of development and improving its performance.