OREANDA-NEWS. February 27, 2010. The International Financial Corporation (IFC) has started  training Azerbaijan bankers on managing risks and improving their credit portfolios, thus helping them mitigate the impact of the financial crisis and expand lending to the real economics.

IFC informed that on February 26, in cooperation with PriceWaterHouse and the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA), IFC carried out a one-day workshop in Baku for senior bankers from 30 financial institutions. The event is a part of IFC’s broader crisis-response initiative, which is focused on strengthening local banks and companies to help them cope with the consequences of the financial crisis.

The training focused on transfer of distressed assets for the purpose of stimulating new loans and also included portfolio management.

“The main problem of the banking sector today is bad assets management. IFC will help banks to adopt best practices of international experience. These methods could then be applied in other countries of the Europe and Central Asia region those are looking for a way to recover from the crisis,” said Garth Bedford, IFC’s Financial Market Crisis Response Project Manager.

The Financial Market Crisis Response Project was launched in August, 2009 to assist financial institutions in the region to recover from the crisis. The project has already delivered to 10 workshops for about 360 participants to help banks to stimulate new lending by developing strategies on non-performing loans recovery. IFC’s experts also informed on assessment of credit risks in seven banks by conducting comprehensive diagnostics and support of implementing of the recommendations.